386.4 

H24S     Ccirter  H.HARRISON 

SPEECHES  ON  ILLINOIS  AND 
MICHIGAN  CANAL  AND  OTHER 
SUBJECTS 


\\V-V 


SPEECHES 


ON 


Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal, 

AND      OTHER      SUBJECTS. 


BY 


HON.  CARTER  H.  HARRISON. 


.^  &  /     g         "XII. 


SPEECH  OP 

HON.  CARTER  H.  HARRISON, 

OF  ILLINOIS, 

ON  THE  ILLINOIS  AND  MICHIGAN  CANAL, 

IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  EEPKESENTATIVES, 

TUESDAY,  MAY  2i,  1878. 

The  House  being  in  Committee  of  the  Whole  and  having  under  consideration  the  bill  (H.  R. 
No.  4867)  making  appropriations  for  the  support  of  the  Army  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30, 
1879,  and  for  other  purposes- 

Mr.  CHAIRMAN  :  In  old  Egypt  kings  were  worshiped  as  gods  ;  in  imperial  Home 
emperors-  were  deified;  during  the  Middle  Ages  kings  ruled  by  "divine  right,"  andin  mod- 
ern Europe  by  the  "grace  of  God  ;  "  in  America  rulers  govern  by  the  will  of  the  people. 

Sir,  in  all  monarchical  countries  armies  are  maintained  to  defend  the  people  against 
a  foreign  foe  and  to  defend  the  king  against  his  domestic  foe,  the  people.  In  our  free 
Republic  armies  are,  and  should  be,  enrolled  only  to  protect  us  against  our  foreign  enemies. 

The  gentleman  from  Ohio  [Mr.  GARFIELD]  this  evening  most  dramatically  recited 
Macaulay's  brilliant  picture  of  what  in  this  country  will  be  the  result  of  a  redundant 
population,  and  his  attempt  to  demonstrate  that  Mr.  Jefferson's  fabric  of  a  free  Republic 
would  be  a  failure.  So  dramatic  was  the  gentleman's  rendition  of  the  Englishman's  pict- 
ure, that  it  was  difficult  to  believe  that  he  differed  much  from  the  essayist.  It  is  true  he 
told  us  he  did  not  think  the  prophecy  would  be  fulfilled  for  yet  one  or  two  hundred  years. 
But  with  abundant  precaution,  he  advocated  the  maintenance  of  a  large  standing  army 
with  an  elasticity  of  organization,  ready  for  this  emergency  yet  in  the  womb  of  future 
centuries.  He  wants  the  Army  kept  us  as  a  nucleus,  around  which  is  to  be  nurtured  an 
American  martial  spirit. 

Ah  I  Mr.  Chairman,  standing  armies  do  not  encourage  martial  spirit  among  a  people. 
The  people  forget  how  to  fight  when  they  have  hired  soldiers  to  do  their  battles.  Rome 
v.  ceased  to  be  warlike,  when  her  pretorian  bands  stood  guard  over  her,  and  she  finally  bent 
her  knee  to  them  as  masters.  The  Mamelukes  protected  Egypt,  and  her  people  became 
slaves.  Turkey  was  protected  by  the  Janizaries  till  the  Turk  became  little  better  than  the 
eunuch  of  his  harem. 

The  Swiss  protected  the  Bourbon's  France,  and  Frenchmen  became  caperers  and  revel- 
ers, till  finally  awakened  from  their  dream  they  were  baptized  in  blood,  and  turned  to  men 
and  heroes.  Martial  spirit  grows  under  the  sunshine  of  liberty  and  love  of  country  or  of 
conquest.  It  perishes  in  the  baleful  shadow  of  a  standing  army. 

Sir,  we  want  no  standing  army  in  free  America  to  protect  society  against  lawlessness. 
The  people  must  protect  themselves  and  will  protect  themselves.  The  gentleman  may  go 
to  his  couch  and  dream  rosy  dreams.  His  hundred  or  two  hundred  years  off  are  yet  far 
.  away. 

The  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  [Mr.  BUTLER]  told  us  this  evening  that  for  long 

years  only  one  law  had  been  passed  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  man,  and  that  it  (the  home- 

stead law)  was  a  delusion.    Sir,  that  gentleman  struck  the  key-note.     "What  we  want  is 

;     proper  legislation.     We  want  laws  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  and  not  to  enable  the  rich 

to  grow  richer  at  the  expense  of  the  poor. 

Taxes  come  out  of  the  people,  taxes  are  levied  upon  men.  Federal  taxes  are  paid  by 
what  men  eat  and  drink  and  wear,  and  not  a  dollar  of  it  falls  upon  wealth.  Change  your 
legislation  and  you  may  almost  disband  your  Army.  The  people  are  hungry  ;  they  are 
k  starving  ;  they  are  discontented  ;  they  clamor  for  work.  Give  it  to  them  ;  set  them  to  work 
and  make  them  happy  and  contented.  This  Congress  can  do  it.  Start  some  great  public 
works.  Pass  House  bill  4822  for  a  ship-canal  from  Lake  Michigan  to  the  Mississippi,  and  I 
will  guarantee  that  the  people  will  take  it  as  an  earnest  of  your  good  intentions.  To  that 
I  will  now  address  my  remarks. 

Mr.  Chairman,  a  century  ago  this  year,  Illinois  was  organized  as  a  far-off  county  of 
Virginia.  In  1804  it  was  created  a  Territory,  and  in  1818  was  admitted  into  the  sisterhood 
of  States.  Ten  years  later,  or  fifty  years  ago,  its  population  was  about  one  hundred  and 

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forty  thousand,  and  its  northern  half,  which  now  teems  with  a  vast  and  intelligent  people, 
was  the  home  of  but  few  white  men.  In  the  northeastern  corner  of  the  State,  on  the  south- 
western bend  of  Lake  Michigan,  at  that  date  was  located  Fort  Dearborn,  a  small  frontier 
post,  guarded  by  a  company  of  United  States  soldiers. 

Sir,  outside  the  fort  were  the  cabins  of  a  half  dozen  white  men  (intermarried  with 
squaws),  who  eked  out  a  scanty  subsistence  by  doing  odd  jobs  for  the  people  in  the  fort,  and 
by  trading  with  the  Indians  who  came  at  stated  periods  to  receive  blankets,  the  gift  of  the 
Great  Father  at  Washington,  and  to  trade  furs  with  the  resident  agents  of  the  American 
•Fur  Company  for  the  red  man's  treasures — whisky  and  powder. 

The  fort  and  these  cabins  covered  nearly  all  the  dry  land  which  lay  within  several 
miles.  To  the  east  was  the  great  lake,  three  hundred  miles  long,  sixty  miles  wide,  and  nine 
hundred  feet  deep.  Its  fountain  waters  were  plowed  once  or  twice  a  year  only,  by  a  small 
schooner,  which  supplied  the  fort  and  the  fur  agency.  In  all  other  directions,  for  hundreds 
of  miles,  stretched  a  wild  prairie,  low,  flat,  uninviting,  and  uninhabited,  except  by  a  few 
scattered  tribes  of  Indians. 

Along  the  lake  shore,  sir,  was  a  narrow,  sandy  ridge,  a  sort  of  natural  causeway,  only 
a  few  feet  higher  than  the  lake.  Excepting  this  ridge,  nearly  all  the  land  for  many  miles 
was  a  reedy  marsh  or  a  low  prairie,  so  flat  as  to  hold  the  spring  rains  in  its  tangled  grass 
as  in  a  sponge.  A  person  on  horseback,  leaving  this  ridge,  found  himself,  during  the  spring 
months,  up  to  the  saddle-skirts  in  marsh,  or  floundering  along  the  flat  prairie,  which  at 
that  period  of  the  year  was  but  little  better  than  marsh.  And  even  as  late  as  July,  a 
pedestrian  could  reach  the  Des  Plaines  River,  ten  miles  west,  only  by  wading  over  shoe-top 
in  water,  or  by  springing  from  ant-hill  to  ant-hill,  the  only  dry  land  near. 

Sir,  the  eye  of  a  prophet  alone  could  have  seen  here  the  site  of  one  of  the  world's 
great  cities. 

Immediately  under  the  stockades  of  the  fort  lazily  lay  a  small  creek,  or  rather  bayou, 
reaching  back  from  the  lake  shore  a  little  over  a  half  mile,  where  it  was  parted  into  two 
branches,  one  coming  from  tho  north,  the  other  from  the  south,  nearly  parallel  with  the 
lake,  and  neither  over  five  miles  long.  That  creek  lay  sullen  and  black  like  a  serpent  sleep- 
ing in  the  marsh.  Its  average  width  did  not  exceed  sixty  feet,  and  at  its  mouth,  where  the 
sands  were  driven  in  by  the  lake  storms,  it  could  in  late  summer  be  crossed  almost  dry-shod. 
Its  dark  waters  were  rarely  disturbed,  except  by  the  flappings  of  water  fowls,  whose  nest- 
ings were  in  the  bullrushes  along  its  low  margin,  or  by  the  silent  natation  of  the  muskrat, 
or  by  the  almost  equally  silent  dip  of  an  occasional  red  man's  paddle. 

In  more  respects  than  in  appearance  did  that  inky  bayou  resemble  a  sleeping  serpent. 
Sir,  it  only  required  the  prickings  of  man's  warming  energy  to  quicken  it  into  a  life,  which 
would  send  abroad  a  commerce  far  greater  than  that  which  floated  on  the  Thames  a  half 
century  before. 

That  creek  was  the  Chicago  River  ;  to-day  it  is  the  harbor  of  a  city  of  nearly  a  half 
million  of  people — clearing  from  its  piers  last  year  10,284  vessels,  of  a  tonnage  of  3,311,083 
tons.  It  is  the  feeder  of  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal,  the  subject  of  my  present 
remarks.  That  little  creek,  which  now  flows  up  hill,  has  been  for  ages  the  fast-and-loose 
link  uniting  two  vast  river  systems  flowing  into  far  distant  oceans.  It  is  destined  to  exercise 
an  influence  upon  the  world's  commerce  vastly  greater  than  did  Rome's  tawny  Tiber  or 
Egyptian  Nilus. 

Ages  ago  that  link  was  fast  united.  Then  it  opened  or  closed  as  the  waters  were  high 
or  low.  Now,  since  a  few  shovelfuls  of  earth  have  been  judiciously  removed,  it  is  again 
permanently  united,  and  Lake  Michigan  sends  a  part  of  her  crystal  drops  to  mingle  with 
those  of  the  Father  of  Waters.  Some  of  us  here  present  will  live  to  see  mighty  steamers 
unloading  cotton  and  sugar  upon  the  piers  of  Chicago,  arid,  taking  in  the  grain  of  the 
prairies  and  minerals  from  the  far-distant  Superior  regions,  will  steam  away  to  the  Crescent 
City  of  the  South.  And  the  lakes  and  the  Mississippi,  and  their  peoples,  will  be  united  by 
a  bond  no  more  to  be  disturbed  by  internecine  strife. 

Mr.  Chairman,  I  said  that  fifty  years  ago  only  a  prophet  could  have  seen  at  Fort  Dear- 
born the  site  of  a  mighty  city.  But  his  mantle  of  prophecy  need  not  have  been  Heaven- 
born.  It  was  only  necessary  that  its  woof  and  fabric  should  be  woven  of  commercial  and 
engineering  sagacity,  united  to  a  close  observation  of  the  little  bayou  and  the  low  divide 
separating  its  waters  from  those  of  the  Des  Plaines  River  close  by.  That  divide  was  only 
a  few  inches  above  the  average  surface  of  the  Lake,  and  in  high  water  the  birchen  canoe 
passed  freely  from  one  to  the  other. 

Agee  ago  the  groat  prairie  States  of  the  Northwest  were  a  vast  inland  shallow  sea.  Its 
deep  pools  were  the  beds  of  the  present  lakes.  When  the  bottom  of  that  sea  was  upheaved, 
and  the  barriers  to  the  east  and  south  were  broken  down,  the  waters  of  Lake  Michigan 
flowed  to  a  considerable  extent,  through  a  long  cycle  of  centuries,  through  the  Des  Plaines 
River  to  the  Mississippi.  As  the  prairies  to  the  south  were  gradually  lifted,  and  the  out- 
lets to  the  east  were  deepened,  the  southern  outlet  became  nearly  closed. 


Nature  thus  wrote  on  that  low  divide  the  first  engineer's  report  in  favor  of  a  ship-canal 
to  unite  the  Mississippi  and  the  lakes.  She  traced  along  that  flat  marsh,  in  the  dark  waters 
of  that  little  bayou,  the  plan  for  tying  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  Gulf  of  Saint  Lawrence. 
A  gentle  breeze  parted  sister  waters  in  that  sullen  creek  and  carried  them  to  far  distant 
oceans,  where  one  would  be  caught  in  the  frozen  grasp  of  the  stream  coming  down  from 
Labrador,  the  other  to  be  wooed  by  the  warm  embrace  of  the  Gulf  Stream,  again  to  be 
re-united  in  mid-ocean. 

That  report  was  read  by  our  forefathers,  and  its  recommendations  were  adopted  by 
American  statesmen.  Perry's  victories  on  the  lakes  taught  them  where  was  to  be  the  true 
battle-ground  in  a  war  between  England  and  America. 

In  1814,  President  Madison,  in  his  message  to  Congress,  recommended  a  ship-canal 
from  the  head  of  Lake  Michigan  to  the  Mississippi ;  and  the  Committee  on  Military  Affairs 
of  this  House  reported  favorably  the  project.  But  Northern  Illinois  was  then  a  far-off 
land.  Only  two  years  before,  Fort  Dearborn  had  been  the  scene  of  the  Wyoming  of  the 
Northwest.  The  war  was  soon  thereafter  over,  and  republics  are  prone  to  forget  in  times 
of  peace  the  lessons  of  war. 

England  has  not  been  so  forgetful.  Her  Iron  Duke  told  her,  about  the  same  time,  that 
"  a  naval  superiority  on  the  lakes  was  a  sine  qua  non  of  success  in  a  war  with  America." 
By  the  treaty  of  1817,  the  two  governments  bound  themselves  each  to  keep  no  mare  than 
one  armed  vessel  of  a  hundred  tons  burden  upon  the  lakes.  But  England  soon  took  steps 
to  prevent  that  stipulation  from  being  a  source  of  weakness  to  her.  She  has  at  an  expense 
of  about  $22,000,000  thrown  canals  eight  feet  deep  around  the  rapids  of  the  Saint  Lawrence, 
and  the  Welland  Canal  from  Lake  Ontario  to  Lake  Erie  ten  feet  deep.  This  year  the  latter 
is  being  deepened  to  twelve  feet  at  a  cost  of  about  $10,000,000.  And  her  intentions  are  to 
deepen  them  all  to  the  same  depth. 

Sir,  when  the  Mason  and  Slidell  imbroglio  threatened  to  precipitate  the  two  countries 
into  war,  the  London  Times  said  that  "  the  worst  part  of  the  struggle  would  not  be  on  the 
seaboard,  but  on  the  great  lakes,  and  that  within  a  week  after  the  breaking  of  the  ice,  a 
whole  fleet  of  gunboats,  with  the  most  powerful  screw-corvettes,  would  carry  the  protection 
of  the  British  flag  from  Montreal  to  Chicago."  The  people  of  our  lake  cities  had  to  acknowl- 
edge that  the  assertion  was  not  a  mere  idle  boast.  England  has  kept  constantly  on  hand 
war  vessels  which  could  pass  through  these  canals. 

Sir,  early  in  the  late  war  one  of  our  brightest  military  men  (Frank  Blair)  said  on  this 
floor,  that  "a  fleet  of  light  draught  heavily  armed  gun-boats  could  in  a  short  month  get 
into  the  lakes,  and  shell  every  city  from  Chicago  to  Ogdensburgh."  We  had  but  one  small- 
arm  vessel  to  cope  with  this  threatened  fleet,  and  there  were  no  means  of  sending  succor  to 
her.  Our  only  hope  was  in  being  able  to  overrun  Canada  before  the  ice  should  give  way. 

Had  war  then  broken  out  between  England  and  America,  it  is  not  improbable  that  the 
lurid  flames  which  swept  away  so  many  millions  at  Chicago  in  1871,  might  have  had  fore- 
runners all  along  the  lakes. 

Washington  told  us  that  "to  enjoy  peace  we  should  be  prepared  for  war."  Had  we 
followed  his  advice  by  opening  a  ship-canal  from  Lake  Michigan  to  the  Mississippi  prior  to 
the  late  war,  the  humiliation  of  the  Mason  and  Slidell  diplomacy  would  have  been  spared 
us,  and  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  of  treasure  might  have  been  saved  in  our  military 
preparations. 

Some  of  our  most  earnest  statesmen  were  so  impressed  with  the  necessity  of  the  means 
for  passing  gunboats  between  the  lakes  and  the  Mississippi,  that  a  bill  was  introduced  into 
the  Thirty-seventh  Congress,  to  deepen  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal,  and  received  long 
and  earnest  consideration.  But  the  divided  nation  was  then  struggling  for  its  life  ;  the 
grip  of  a  determined  giant  was  upon  its  throat.  Its  sinews  of  war  were  shriveled ;  its 
energies  were  taxed  to  the  utmost  to  send  men  to  the  field  ;  it  could  not  spare  the  money  or 
the  muscle  to  dig  canals.  The  project  slept  till  in  the  winter  of  1865,  when  the  war  was 
virtually  over,  and  then  a  modified  bill  passed  this  House.  But  that  bill  saddled  upon  tbe 
State  of  Illinois  the  bulk  of  the  cost  of  an  undertaking  which  was  wholly  national  in  its 
character.  Mr.  Chairman,  the  Arkansas  farmer  did  not  repair  the  roof  of  his  house,  because 
when  it  rained  he  could  not,  and  when  it  was  dry  it  was  unnecessary.  Must  we  follow  his 
example  or  shall  we  profit  by  his  folly  ? 

But,  Mr.  Chairman,  permit  me  to  go  back.  During  several  years  after  Mr.  Madison's 
recommendation  of  the  ship-canal  from  Lake  Michigan,  the  subject  was  agitated  in  Congress 
and  in  the  new  State  of  Illinois.  In  1822  and  1827  it  was  put  upon  its  legs  ;  surveys  were 
made  and  land  grants  were  given.  It  was  generally  discussed  in  and  out  of  Congress  as  a 
national  undertaking.  But  unfortunately  many  of  our  rulers  were  deeply  imbued  with  that 
hue  of  strict-construction  doctrine,  which  taught  them  that  salt  was  necessary  to  make  a 
water  national.  They  could  spend  millions  to  improve  a  salt  water  harbor,  but  were 
unwilling  to  use  a  dollar  to  improve  a  river,  though  it  watered  many  States.  Some  of  them 
went  so  far  as  to  doubt  the  constitutionality  of  improving  the  harbors  of  the  American 


___  4 

Mediterranean — our  great  lakes.  The  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal  and  the  Illinois  Kiver 
lay  wholly  within  the  limits  of  a  single  State,  and  therefore  they  could  not  conceive  it  to 
be  national.  Such  men  as  Benton  and  Silas  Wright,  however,  lifted  up  their  voices  in  loud 
declaration  of  its  nationality.  Some  of  the  most  eloquent  utterances  of  the  great  Missourian 
were  pleadings  in  favor  of  its  construction. 

Sir,  Tempora  mutantur,  et  nos  mulamur  in  Mis.  The  theories  of  constitutional  con- 
struction have  greatly  changed  since  those  great  men  thundered  upon  the  floors  of  this  Cap- 
itol. Could  I  by  some  magic  touch  bring  them  back  here  to-day,  to  say  what  they  said, 
when  you  and  I  were  little  boys,  in  favor  of  this  great  measure,  I  would  have  but  little  fear 
of  their  success.  What  I  lack  of  their  power  and  ability,  I  shall  try  to  supply  by  my  earn- 
estness. 

But,  sir,  years  ago  they  failed ;  failed  because  their  giant  thoughts  fell  upon  ears  already 
being  filled  by  sectional  bickerings.  The  result  was,  this  great  national  work  dwindled 
into  a  State  undertaking.  The  canal  was  commenced  in  1836  and  completed  in  1848  ;  com- 
pleted, however,  not  to  float  mighty  steamers  and  bristling  gunboats,  but  to  tow  along  the 
pigmy  barge.  Even  this,  however,  gave  a  wonderful  impetus  to  the  Northwest,  Northern 
Illinois  took  at  once  a  giant  stride  ;  a  stride  prophetic  of  her  future  destiny.  With  true 
instinct  of  future  greatness,  she  has  never  lost  sight  of  her  duty,  and  has  already  completed 
two  locks  upon  the  Illinois  River,  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet  long  and  seven  feet  deep. 
She  has  never  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  that  river  and  the  canal  are  but  an  arm  of  the 
mighty  Mississippi. 

For  many  years  the  canal  was  fed  by  lifting  into  it,  by  powerful  hydraulic  engines, 
water  from  the  Chicago  Kiver.  But,  sir,  an  empire  has  grown  up  along  its  margins  and  in 
its  neighborhood.  A  great  city  sits  at  its  head,  a  city  of  mercantile  palaces.  It  numbers 
a  half  million  souls.  It  clears  from  its  piers  over  10,000  vessels  annually.  It  receives  each 
year  100,000,000  bushels  of  grain,  more  than  one-twentieth  of  all  of  America's  product. 
The  forest  sends  to  her  yards  its  stately  monarchs  riven  into  1,066,000,000  feet  of  lumber. 
Four  million  one  hundred  and  ninety  thousand  three  hundred  and  six  swine  last  year 
entered  her  stock-yards ;  and  2,983,486  bit  the  dust  within  her  limits,  to  be  turned  into  pork, 
the  food  of  millions  in  the  Old  World,  who  battle  for  the  kings  who  "  rule  by  the  grace  of 
God."  One  million  thirty-three  thousand  cattle  pass  through  her  annually  to  supply  the 
tables  of  Eastern  States,  and  over  310,000  sheep  are  added  to  their  larder.  She  pours  nearly 
$10,000,000  of  internal  revenue  into  the  coffers  of  the  Federal  Treasury.  Her  post-office 
distributes  more  newspapers  than  any  other  in  the  country.  In  letters  it  is  the  second,  and 
in  revenues  the  third  in  the  land. 

Telegrams  flit  each  hour  of  the  day  upon  a  thousand  wires,  over  hill  and  dale,  over 
mountain  and  valley,  and  flash  along  the  stilly  floor  of  the  turbulent  Atlantic,  to  tell  the 
world  what  price  Chicago  merchants  put  upon  a  bushel  of  wheat  or  upon  a  barrel  of  pork. 
These  prices  rule  in  every  other  mart. 

Yet,  sir,  Chicago  is  only  forty  years  old.  You  are  in  the  prime  of  life,  and  can 
remember  that  in  your  school  days  her  name  scarcely  appeared  upon  your  map.  Why  her 
great  development?  What  has  given  it  birth  ?  Not  her  people's  energies,  but  because  the 
place  and  it  peculiar  situation  have  developed  the  energies  of  her  people.  Men  build  up 
localities,  but  localities  and  their  inexorable  necessities  make  men. 

Seven  and  a  half  years  since  Chicago  lay  in  ashes.  In  eighteen  hours  two  hundred 
million  dollars'  worth  of  her  property  floated  over  the  lake  in  smoky  carbon.  One  hundred 
thousand  people  saw  the  sun  of  October  8,  1871,  set  upon  their  comfortable  homes ;  the 
next  sunset  found  them  without  a  place  wherein  to  lay  their  heads.  Yet  to-day  the  city  is 
rebuilt  in  added  splendor,  and  its  population  has  increased  nearly  40  per  cent.  It  is  true  her 
people  are  in  debt.  Thousands  who  five  years  since  were  rich  are  now  bankrupt.  But  their 
wealth  has  only  changed  hands.  The  city  is  there,  and  her  trade  has  steadily  grown  during 
the  past  four  years  of  disaster. 

Sir,  Chicago  is  not  an  exaggeration  of  western  outgrowth.  She  has  not  kept  pace  with 
the  country  tributary  to  her.  Illinois  is  the, central  figure  of  six  imperial  States.  Her 
population  has  grown  in  fifty  years  from  140,000  to  over  3,000,000.  In  1877  she  grew  over 
250,000,000  bushels  of  corn — one-fourth  of  all  the  corn  grown  in  the  United  States.  Iowa, 
Wisconsin,  and  Minnesota,  whose  virgin  prairies,  fifty  years  since,  had  scarcely  been  trodden 
by  the  foot  of  a  white  man,  number  not  far  from  4,000,000  people.  Michigan  and  Indiana 
have  over  3,000,000.  These  six  prairieStates  have  a  greater  population  than  Spain  had,  when 
she  ruled  the  world  with  a  rod  of  iron,  and  when  old  ocean  was  grandiloquently  styled  the 
Spanish  lake.  These  six  States  harvested  last  year  not  far  from  700,000,000  bushels  of  corn 
and  wheat,  nearly  one-half  of  all  which  was  harvested  in  this  broad  land.  They  harvested 
nearly  one-third  of  all  other  cereals  of  the  country. 

Yet,  sir,  but  a  small  proportion  of  the  rich  soils  of  these  six  States  is  under  actual 
cultivation.  Go  this  coming  June  and  traverse  them  by  rail.  Although  population  hugs 
the  railroads,  yet  your  eye  will  be  gladdened  by  stretches  of  thousands  of  acres  golden  with 


—  5  — 

wild  prairie  flowers.  An  English  traveler  last  year  visiting  Illinois  called  her  prairies 
"nature's  floral  bonanza." 

These  six  States  can  feed  the  world.  Vast  and  productive  States  are  yet  beyond  them. 
The  world  is  hungry  and  asks  for  che&pened  bread.  How  to  move  the  produce  of  this  great 
grain-producing  area,  is  a  problem  over  which  thinking  men  are  pondering.  A  thousand 
iron  horses  groan  along  the  iron  pathway  leading  down  to  the  sea.  Their  insatiable  maws 
exact  a  burdensome  tribute  from  the  field  and  from  the  plow.  Their  hot  breath  blasts  the 
blossoms  of  hope  and  of  profit.  Their  mailed  hoof  treads  down  the  flower  garden  and  the 
green  pasture.  The  morning  sun  catches  the  farmer  at  work,  and  its  going  down  leaves 
him  wearied  and  doubtful.  He  has  no  time  to  store  his  mind  with  knowledge  or  to  adorn 
his  home.  His  tread-mill  life  begins  on  the  first  day  of  January,  and  it  ends  not  on  the  last 
day  of  December.  He  sows  and  corporations  harvest. 

Sir,  water  next  to  air  is  God's  freest  gift  to  man.  History  goes  not  back  to  the  day 
when  it  was  not  his  smoothest  highway.  It  alone  can  wash  out  monopolies.  Kailroads 
may  thrive  along  its  margins,  but  they  cannot  oppress.  Rivers  and  canals  may  not  bear  a 
large  amount  of  freights,  but  wherever  they  exist  railway  charges  are  light.  Within  fifteen 
miles  of  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal,  railway  freights  are  20  to  30  per  cent,  cheaper 
than  they  are  farther  off.  But  this  canal  floats  only  barges,  and  horses  are  their  motors. 

Sir,  deepen  this  canal  and  improve  the  Illinois  River,  as  Madison  recommended,  and 
then  great  steamers  will  take  cargoes  from  the  ships  of  the  lakes,  and  will  bear  them  to  the 
far-off  South  or  up  the  Missouri  to  the  distant  plains  of  the  West.  Three  great  railroads 
start  from  Chicago  ;  they  diverge  to  the  north  and  the  south,  but  come  again  together  at 
Council  Bluffs.  Another  farther  south  reaches  Kansas  City  near  by.  Trains  of  from  thirty 
to  fifty  cars,  only  a  few  hours  apart,  are  ever  thundering  along  these  lines.  They  come 
East  laden  with  grain,  with  hogs  and  cattle,  and  with  the  treasures  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  ; 
they  go  West  groaning  under  millions  of  feet  of  lumber  and  with  the  fabrics  of  the  eastern 
work-shops.  Two  great  lines  lead  to  the  South ;  they,  too,  take  and  bring  their  rich 
freightage. 

The  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal  to  a  great  extent  keeps  down  the  charges  of  all  of 
these  great  railroad  lines.  It  competes  with  them  all  to  a  great  extent  in  all  heavy  goods. 
Lumber  and  ready-made  houses  are  conveyed  on  its  barges  to  the  Mississippi,  and  thence 
to  the  decks  of  steamers  to  climb  high  up  the  Missouri,  to  furnish  houses  for  the  settlers  of 
the  plains. 

But,  sir,  how  small  the  competition  of  these  little  horse-drawn  barges  compared  to  that 
which  the  steamboat  would  afford.  Deepen  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal  to  seven  feet, 
and  steamers  of  a  thousand  tons  burden  would  lay  the  ships  of  our  fresh-water  seas  of  the 
North,  side  by  side  with  the  ocean  ship  of  New  Orleans.  Steamers  of  a  lighter  burden 
would  ply  between  the  lakes  and  the  far-off  Yellowstone.  North  and  South,  East  and  West 
would  be  by  it  bound  together. 

Sir,  is  not  this  a  national  undertaking?  I  am  tempted  here  to  quote  from  the  great 
Missouri  statesman,  Benton.  Twenty-nine  years  ago  he  thus  spoke  : 

The  nationality  of  the  Chicago  Canal  and  harbor  at  Its  mouth  are  by  no  means  new  conceptions 
with  me.  The  river  navigation  of  the  great  West  is  the  most  wonderful  on  the  gJobe,  ana  since 
the  application  of  steam-power  to  the  propulsion  of  vessels,  possesses  the  essential  qualities  of  open 
navigation.  Speed,  distance,  cheapness,  magnitude  of  cargoes  are  all  there,  and  without  the  perils 
of  the  sea  from  storms  and  enemies.  The  steamboat  is  the  ship  of  the  river,  and  finds  in  the 
Mississippi  and  its  tributaries  the  amplest  theater  for  the  diffusion  and  the  display  of  power. 
"Wonderful  river  I  connected  with  seas  by  the  head  and  by  the  north,  stretching  its  arms  toward 
the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific  ;  lying  in  a  valley,  which  is  a  valley  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  Hudson's 
Bay  ;  drawing  its  waters,  not  from  the  rugged  mountains,  but  from  the  plateau  of  the  lakes  in  the 
center  of  the  continent,  and  in  communication  with  the  sources  of  the  Saint  Lawrence  and  the 
streams  which  take  their  course  north  to  Hudson's  Bay  ;  draining  the  largest  extent  of  richest  land  ; 
collecting  the  products  of  every  clime,  even  the  frigid,  to  bear  the  whole  to  market  in  the  sunny 
South,  and  there  to  meet  the  products  of  the  whole  world  Such  is  the  Mississippi.  And  who  can 
calculate  the  aggregate  of  its  advantages  and  the  magnitude  of  its  future  commercial  results '( 

Mr.  Speaker,  thus  spoke  a  man  whose  gospel  was  the  Bible  and  his  country's  Constitu- 
tion. He  was  speaking  to  men  who  on  one  side  saw  looming  up  in  the  future  a  mighty 
southern  republic,  and  on  the  other  to  men  who  saw  in  the  future  an  eastern  empire — an 
empire  of  monopoly  and  gold ;  an  empire  whose  realm  should  be  America,  whose  throne 
would  be  in  Wall  street.  His  words  sank  deep  into  the  minds  of  his  heareis.  But  their 
hearts  were  not  touched.  Lust  of  power  and  greed  of  wealth  were  uniting  two  diametric- 
ally opposed  factors.  Mammon  and  ambition  united  these  two  factors  in  violent  opposition 
to  his  scheme.  The  one  is  broken  forever.  The  South  dreams  not  of  a  separate  empire  ; 
she  has  learned,  at  a  cost  which  the  wildest  imagining  could  not  foresee,  that  the  waters  of 
the  Mississippi  cannot  wash  the  homes  of  a  divided  people.  The  West  has  learned  that 
gold  is  the  heaviest  of  all  task-masters. 

Sir,  the  Mississippi  and  its  navigable  feeders  give  a  water  line  of  nearly  twelve  thous- 
and miles.  They  water  soil  capable  of  producing  nearly  every  fruit  and  grain  known  to 
the  world.  The  lakes  have  a  shore  line  of  over  five  thousand  miles.  Every  foot  of  that 


shore  line  except  on  Lake  Superior  is  as  rich  as  the  valleys  of  Judeae,  the  home  of  God's 
chosen  people.  The  rugged  shores  of  Superior  are  solid  with  minerals  almost  as  pure  as 
the  product  of  the  furnace. 

Mr.  Speaker,  all  of  this  vast  water  inland  seaboard  can  be  brought  into  union  by  a 
canal  thirty-six  miles  long,  and  yet  our  statesmen  ask,  is  it  national? 

Sir,  look  again  at  the  railroads  centering  at  the  mouth  of  this  canal.  Fourteen  different 
roads,  whose  arms  reach  over  and  through  all  of  the  grain-fields  of  the  Northwest,  center 
at  Chicago.  One  can  read  on  the  sides  of  cars  any  day  within  her  limits  the  names  of 
nearly  every  railroad  corporation  of  this  northern  continent.  There  stands  a  car  belonging 
to  the  Central  Pacific.  Coupled  to  it  is  one  of  the  Grand  Trunk  of  Canada.  A  Texan  car 
is  being  unloaded,  and  its  stores  are  being  transferred  to  another,  whose  ownership  is  in 
Baltimore.  A  switch  engine  puffs  by  and  crashes  a  car  marked  "Jackson  and  New  Orleans;" 
against  another  labeled  "Hudson  Kiver."  A  "Boston"  car  is  coupled  to  one  marked 
"Northern  Pacific." 

All  of  the  fourteen  roads  centering  in  Chicago,  whose  connections  are  like  the  nerves 
©f  the  body,  leading  to  every  extremity  of  the  Republic,  unite,  and  their  rolling-stock  is 
freely  transferred  from  one  to  another.  They  all  run  into  a  common  stock-yard.  They  all 
run  into  the  great  lumber-yards.  They  all  lie  along  the  huge  grain  elevators,  many  of 
which  have  storage  for  over  a  million  bushels  each.  These  elevators  handle  a  car-load  of 
grain  as  readily  as  a  man  can  a  bushel  measure.  Deep  water  washes  their  walls.  A  car-load 
of  wheat  is  lifted  on  one  side  and  poured  into  the  ship's  hold  on  the  other.  Thirty  thousand 
bushels  are  thus  poured  into  the  vessel's  hold,  so  that  she  can  arrive  and  depart  between  the 
rising  and  setting  of  a  single  day's  sun. 

At  an  expense  of  a  few  millions  of  money,  the  Mississippi  steamer  can  be  enabled  to 
lie  against  these  elevators,  or  at  the  piers  of  a  huge  lumber-yard,  and  after  unloading  upon 
the  lake  ships  the  produce  of  the  far  West  or  the  extreme  South,  she  can  steam  to  Upper 
Missouri,  laden  with  lumber  or  ready-made  houses,  or  to  New  Orleans  with  grain  and  pork, 
and  the  minerals  of  the  Superior,  to  be  poured  into  an  ocean-bound  arogosy.  A  vast  trade 
would  thus,  Mr.  Speaker,  be  divorced  from  the  more  costly  railroad  transportation.  Cor- 
porations would  be  brought  to  assume  the  semblance  of  having  souls,  though  they  possessed 
none. 

Sir,  we  often  hear  it  said  that  traffic  has  left  the  smooth  water-way  to  take  the  iron 
one.  When  prices  of  commodities  rule  high,  then  high  rates  of  transportation  can  be  paid. 
The  high  prices  pay  both  producer  and  carrier.  Under  the  effect  of  the  abnormal  prices 
maintained  during  and  after  the  late  war,  not  only  were  the  producers  and  the  carriers 
prosperous,  but  a  vast  army  of  middlemen  sprang  into  existence.  The  great  question  with 
all  was  rapid  transit.  To-day  war  and  war  rumors  cause  all  the  products  of  the  West  to 
bear  remunerative  prices.  But  war  may  not  come,  and  in  no  event  can  it  be  long  main- 
tained ;  war  is  a  costly  luxury  to  kings.  In  these  days  of  iron  forts  on  the  sea,  Krupp-guns 
and  vast  armies,  the  deadly  conflict  on  Europe's  little  theater  will  soon  be  over.  Our  city 
thoroughfares  are  crowded  with  well-dressed  middlemen  incapacitated  by  habit  for  manual 
labor,  to  whom  the  future  is  dark  and  dismal.  Their  occupation  died  when  prices  fell. 
When  the  electric  flash  from  Europe  shall  tell  us  that  peace  is  fixed,  then  will  railroads 
suffer  and  farmers  will  be  forced  to  do  as  they  have  done  in  the  past:  burn  corn  for  fuel. 

Bills  are  introduced  into  this  house  to  do  violence  to  the  Constitution  by  legislating 
upon  the  tariff  of  prices  to  be  charged  by  railroads.  Gentlemen  forget  that  the  Congress 
which  make  rules  for  the  great  corporations  now  grasping  the  diadem  in  this  Republic — 
corporations  which  can  never  die,  and  which  can  ever  reach  the  ear  of  the  legislator — can 
also  unmake  rules,  and  that  our  most  stringent  laws  have  to  be  interpreted  by  courts,  which 
are  often  but  the  creatures  of  these  corporations.  If  we  wish  earnestly  to  control  these 
deathless  and  soulless  privileged  beings,  we  should  enable  the  people  to  keep  them  in  check 
by  giving  them  sure  and  enduring  competing  modes  of  reaching  markets.  These  are 
water-ways. 

The  Erie  Canal  early  last  year  reduced  its  tolls  from  one  and  a  half  cents  to  one  cent 
on  a  bushel  of  wheat.  The  grain  shipped  east  in  1877  was  less  than  in  1876,  yet  that 
reduction  of  one-half  cent  per  bushel  added  to  the  freightage  of  the  canal  about  eighteen 
million  bushels.  The  railroads  fought  this  reduction.  They  will  always  fight  water-lines. 
In  England  the  great  railway  corporations  have  bought  up  all  the  canals  of  the  kingdom. 
Not  being  able  to  compete  with  them  they  have  bought  them,  and  now  control  all  prices. 

Sir,  the  great  West  and  the  great  East  have  a  common  interest  in  this  thing.  The 
West  has  the  grain  to  sell ;  the  East  wishes  it  for  bread.  The  eastern  railroad  man  will 
fight  either  a  steamboat-canal  connection  with  Lake  Erie  to  the  Hudson  or  the  one  from 
Lake  Michigan  to  the  Mississippi.  Yet  both  will  benefit  the  great  masses  of  eastern  consum- 
ers. A  deepened  Erie  canal  will  carry  to  them  cheap  food;  a  deepened  canal  in  the  West 
will  force  railroads  to  lower  their  tariffs. 

Sir,  what  will  be  the  effect  on  the  railroads  themselves  by  these  water-competing  lines  ? 


Not  to  cripple  them,  but  to  force  them  to  an  economical  management.  Railroads  fail,  not 
because  railroads  cannot  be  made  to  pay  a  fair  dividend  upon  honest  cost,  but  because  their 
profits  are  eaten  up  by  their  high-salaried  and  ambitious  officials.  Their  presidents  and 
directors  own  stocks  in  "fast-freight  lines,"  in  "star  line?,"  in  "Pullman  palace-car"  lines, 
to  which  they  make  rates  ruinous  to  the  stockholders  of  the  road,  but  paying  enormous 
dividends  to  the  owners  of  these  side-shows.  Force  railroads  to  enter  into  competition 
with  water  highways,  and  these  side-shows  will  die  out  and  corporations  will  stop  voting 
their  presidents  salaries  worthy  of  princes.  The  system  of  dead-heading  legislators  will  be 
ended.  Congressmen  and  Secretaries  of  Departments  will  cease  to  ride  in  directors' cars, 
but  all  will  pay,  and  stockholders  will  cease  to  have  their  shares  watered  out  of  existence. 

Mr.  Chairman,  in  Saxony,  where  every  inch  of  soil  gives  of  its  wealth,  railroads  run 
along  the  Elbe.  Yet  the  Government  has  walled  in  that  shallow  stream,  making  it  keep 
a  single  channel  ;  an  endless  chain  stretches  along  its  center;  steamers,  with  machinery  of 
but  little  more  power  than  a  donkey-engine,  roll  this  chain  over  a  drum  and  stem  the  swift 
current,  dragging  trains  of  heavy  barges  almost  half  a  mile  long.  Everywhere  in  Germany 
streams  which  by  nature  are  unfitted  for  navigation  are  being  turned  into  navigable  waters. 
And  yet  throughout  all  Germany  the  railroads  are  virtually  owned  by  the  Government ; 
if  not  owned  absolutely,  an  interest  more  or  less  great  is  in  the  Government  Government 
thus,  in  the  interest  of  the  people,  keeps  down  its  own  railroad  dividends.  Tariffs  of  prices 
are  thus  kept  down  to  a  minimum. 

Mr.  Chairman,  this  is  a  Government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people. 
Shall  Congress  do  less  for  the  people  than  does  Kaiser  Wilhelm  or  the  King  of  Saxony,  who 
rule  by  the  grace  of  God  1 

Sir,  a  nation's  wealth  consists  not  in  the  gold  and  silver  coins  or  ingots  which  lie  in  its 
treasury  vaults.  Crcesus  proudly  exhibited  his  golden  hoards  to  the  Greek,  but  the  freeman's 
brain  was  not  dazed  by  the  gilded  spectacle  ;  for  he  knew  the  Lydian  masses  were  poor  and 
Lydia  was  only  waiting  for  a  conqueror.  A  nation's  wealth  consists  of  its  brawny  muscles, 
its  working  brains,  its  public  buildings,  its  roads,  its  navigable  rivers  and  canals,  its  grassy 
pastures  browsed  upon  by  sleek  and  fatted  flocks,  its  fields  waving  with  corn,  its  barns  and 
granaries  plethoric  with  food,  its  well-filled  warehouses,  its  noisy  workshops,  its  comfort- 
able homes. 

The  business  of  its  rulers  is  to  enable  the  people  to  gain  all  of  this  wealth.  Sir,  a 
statesman,  once  when  asked  how  a  people  should  be  made  happy,  answered  "reads  !"  How 
to  be  rich,  he  answered,  "roads  I"  How  to  be  independent  and  prepared  for  war,  his  answer 
was  still  "roads  !"  "roads  !"  John  C.  Calhoun  said,  "Let  us  bind  the  republic  together;  let 
us  conquer  space  by  a  perfect  system  of  roads  and  canals." 

Canals  and  well-filled  rivers  are  but  watery  roads,  roads  which  neither  swallow  us  in 
mire  nor  suffocate  with  dust.  The  project  which  I  now  favor  is  within  a  single  State.  It 
is  true  I  am  deeply  interested  in  it  because  that  State  is  my  own.  But  it  will  connect  a 
nation  of  States.  The  navigable  waters  which  this  canal  will  throw  into  communication 
wash  the  soils  of  over  twenty  States.  It  has  been  favored  by  statesmen  of  every  locality. 
Sixty-four  years  ago  the  great  expounder  of  the  Constitution,  James  Madison,  recommended 
it ;  Silas  Wright  and  Horatio  Seymour  have  written  and  spoken  in  its  favor  ;  Benton  and 
Clay  and  a  host  of  lesser  statesmen  did  the  same.  Fifteen  years  since  a  convention  in  its 
favor  met  at  Chicago,  convened  on  a  call  signed  by  ninety-eight  Senators  and  members  of 
Congress.  A  committee  appointed  by  that  convention  memorialized  Congress  in  favor  of 
the  near  completion  of  this  work.  On  that  committee  appeared  the  names  of  New  England 
DA.WES,  Edwards  and  MORRILL,  and  McDougall  from  far-off"  California.  Sectionalism  was 
forgotten ;  the  far  East  united  with  the  extreme  West  in  its  favor 

Sir,  since  Benton  and  Wright  spoke  in  favor  of  marrying  the  great  Father  of  Waters  to 
one  of  the  pure  sisterhood  of  lakes,  the  stride  of  western  improvement  has  been  beyond  any 
parallel  in  history.  The  commerce  of  the  lakes  is  greater  than  was  the  whole  American 
commerce  on  the  seas  a  half  century  ago.  The  tonnage  of  the  clearances  from  Chicago 
alone  amounts  to  nearly  3,500,000  tons — a  million  more  than  it  had  been  in  1867.  The 
shipments  by  the  lake,  of  corn,  was  over  38,600,000  bushels  ;  of  wheat,  over  10,000,000 ;  of 
oats,  5,000,000;  of  grass  and  flaxseed,  48,000,000  pounds ;  of  oil-cake,  6,000,000;  of  lard, 
21,600,000  pounds.  Besides  these  there  are  other  classes  of  produce  which  run  into  the 
millions. 

Her  receipts  of  lumber  I  will  give  because  of  their  almost  fabulous  amounts.  Over 
1,000,000,000  feet  of  boards,  464,880,000  shingles,  48,000,000  of  lath,  and  126,000,000  of 
staves  and  heading  ;  and  806,000  tons  coal.  I  have  counted  nearly  forty  ships  and  steamers 
at  one  time  in  sight  making  for  her  creek. 

A  ship-canal  would  bring  the  Mississippi,  Missouri,  and  Ohio  steamers  alongside  ot 
these  lake  craft.  The  minerals  of  Lake  Supe'rior,  the  lumber  of  Canada  and  Michigan,  the 
hard  coal  of  Pennsylvania,  would  pass  from  them  directly  to  the  river  steamer.  Cotton  and 
sugar  would  be  transferred  from  the  steamer  to  the  ship  for  the  lake  cities  and  the  east. 


—  8  — 

Sir,  a  few  years  ago  Lesseps  became  famous  by  dredging  out  the  sands  between  the 
Mediterranean  and  the  Red  Sea.  And  to-day  two  vast  empires  are  threatening  a  war  which 
will  cost  untold  millions  of  treasure,  and  will  cause  torrents  of  blood  to  flow  to  maintain  the 
neutrality  of  that  highway  to  the  East.  Commercially  this  connection  of  the  lakes  and  the 
Mississippi  is  of  more  importance  to  America  than  the  Suez  canal  is  to  England. 

Mr.  Speaker,  is  the  thing  practicable  ? 

In  1867  the  great  War  Secretary,  Stan  ton,  caused  a  survey  to  be  carefully  made  of  the 
line  of  the  Illinois  anl  Michigan  Canal  and  the  Illinois  River  with  a  view  of  determining 
the  practicability  of  the  improvement  as  a  war  measure.  General  J.  H.  Wilson  conducted 
the  survey  and  reported  in  1868,  showing  not  only  the  feasibility  of  the  thing,  but  its  easy 
and  certain  working.  By  careful  examination  he  found  that  a  canal  could  be  made  along 
the  present  bed  from  Chicago  to  Joliet,  a  distance  of  thirty-six  miles  ;  and  that  the  Illinois 
and  Des  Plaines  Rivers  could  be  improved  by  locks  and  dams  to  the  Mississippi  River,  so 
as  to  give  a  depth  of  seven  feet  in  ordinary  stages  of  water,  and  a  depth  of  six  feet  in  the 
lowest  stages,  throughout  the  entire  length  of  the  canal  and  river  from  Lake  Michigan  to 
the  Mississippi. 

This  low  stage  of  water  is  of  rare  occurrence,  not  having  been  in  the  past  but  once  in 
over  thirty  years,  and  then  only  for  a  short  time.  General  Wilson's  plan  was  to  widen  the 
present  canal  to  one  hundred  and  sixty  feet,  and  to  deepen  it  to  seven  feet,  and  to  provide 
canal  and  rivers  with  locks  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet  length,  seventy-five  feet  wide, 
and  seven  feet  deep.  This  would  enable  a  gunboat  of  six  feet  draught  to  pass  from  lake  to 
river  at  all  times,  and  a  Mississippi  steamer  of  one  thousand  tons  to  steam  along  it  at  fair 
speed.  He  showed  that  the  canal  could  be  fed  by  a  natural  flow  from  the  Chicago  River. 
Since  his  report  was  made,  the  city  of  Chicago,  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  off  its  sewerage, 
has  at  its  own  expense  deepened  a  part  of  the  canal  and  thoroughly  demonstrated  the  truth 
of  Wilson's  calculations. 

The  Chicago  River  now  flows  steadily  up  stream  and  pours  into  the  canal  as  through  a 
natural  channel.  Lake  Michigan  may  be  considered  a  vast  fountain.  It  is  said  that  it 
empties  through  the  straits  at  Mackinac  more  water  than  is  poured  into  her  by  all  of  its 
tributary  rivers  and  creeks.  And  it  has  been  calculated  that  a  larger  volume  of  water  is 
lifted  from  its  surface  in  mist  by  a  summer  day's  sun,  than  is  poured  into  it  in  the  same 
time  by  all  of  its  creeks  and  rivers.  Its  real  and  exhaustless  supply  comes  from  springs  in 
its  cool  depths.  Their  sources  are  in  the  far-off  plains  and  mountains  of  the  "West.  The 
lake's  greatest  ebb  and  flow  does  not  exceed  four  feet,  and  that  is  caused  by  the  shifting 
courses  of  the  winds.  Rainy  seasons  do  not  lift  it  and  dry  seasons  do  not  sensibly  lower  it. 

Mr.  Chairman,  a  canal  one  hundred  and  sixty  feet  wide  and  seven  feet  deep  could  be 
fed  by  the  lake  without  causing  an  appreciable  lowering  of  its  surface.  A  steady  flow  of 
pure  water  would  pour  through  the  canal  into  the  Illinois  River,  keeping  it  always  full, 
and  would  add  much  to  the  steadiness  of  the  channel  of  the  Mississippi  from  the  mouth  of 
the  Illinois  to  that  of  the  Missouri.  This  great  national  interstate  undertaking  could  be 
completed  at  the  present  low  prices  of  labor  for  from  $9,000,000  to  $12,000,000. 

This  sum  could  be  raised  by  Government  at  a  low  rate  of  interest,  and  the  tolls  would 
go  far  toward  repaying  interest  and  principal.  The  present  canal  has  collected  over 
$300,000  in  tolls  in  a  single  year. 

Illinois  has  expended  over  $6,000,000  in  making  the  canal  and  in  locking  and  damming 
the  river.  Two  locks  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in  length  have  been  completed.  She 
would  surrender  all  she  has  put  into  it  and  would  patriotically  give  it  all  up  to  have  the 
canal  made  national. 

Sir,  should  not  the  Government  do  this  thing?  And,  if  done,  is  not  this  the  time  for 
it?  A  million  of  strong  men  are  now  idle  throughout  the  land;  idle  not  from  choice  but 
from  dire  necessity.  Idleness  has  been  termed  "hell's  workshop."  Governments  are  for 
the  good  of  the  people ;  their  legislation  should  have  but  one  end,  and  that  to  better  the 
condition  of  the  people.  It  may  not  be  their  duty  to  furnish  work  to  the  idle  but  it  is 
their  duty  to  enable  them  to  live  and  to  enable  the  rich  to  employ  the  poor.  But  to-day 
the  rich  do  not  employ  the  poor.  Capital  is  idle,  because  capitalists  are  timid  and  lack 
confidence  in  the  outcome  of  investments. 

Government  cannot  or  does  not  restore  confidence.  Government  is  but  the  agent  of 
aggregated  society;  of  aggregations  of  men.  Should  not  Government  do  as  men  would  do  ? 
Should  it  not  improve  its  possessions  when  labor  and  material  are  cheap  ?  A  prudent  man 
would  and  should  do  this.  Why  then  should  not  the  aggregation  of  men  which  we  call 
Government  do  the  same  ?  When  private  enterprises  are  freely  undertaken  then  govern- 
mental undertakings  inflate  the  price  of  labor  and  material.  When  private  enterprises  are 
not  undertaken,  then  governmental  undertakings  are  not  only  prudent,  but  may  be  not  only 
an  economic  but  a  social  and  political  necessity. 

•  --•*  Sir,  I  said  idleness  is  hell's  workshop.     Out  of  that  pestilential  laboratory  stalk  crime 
and  anarchy.     Crime  and  anarchy  are  destructive  of  society  and  ultimately  become  the 


destroyer  ot  government  itself.  The  arrest  and  punishment  of  a  criminal  cost  large  sums 
of  money.  The  conviction  of  a  murderer  costs  Government  thousands  of  dollars.  Every 
day's  sittings  of  a  court,  with  its  jurors,  bailiffs,  and  other  paraphernalia,  cost  large 
amounts.  The  bulk  of  a  people's  taxation  is  for  the  suppression  and  punishment  of  crime. 
I  have  heard  of  the  trial  of  a  single  offender  costing  a  State  over  a  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars. How  much  more  beneficent  the  prevention  of  crime,  and  what  so  humane  as  the 
removal  of  its  cause?  Several  hundred  millions  of  dollars  are  wrung  from  the  people  every" 
year  throughout  the  States  to  be  spent  in  the  protection  of  the  innocent  against  the  depreda-" 
tion  of  the  criminal,  and  for  the  punishment  of  the  criminal.  Men  are  to-day  reading  witb> 
alarm  of  the  threatened  outbreaks  of  the  commune. 

A  bill  was  lately  introduced  into  this  House  to  enable  the  President  to  enroll  seventy- - 
five  thousand  soldiers  to  protect  us  against  these  outbreaks  this  coming  summer  and  fall. 
Sir,  why  this  alarm?     Because  men  are  hungry  and  discontented.     We  are  asked  to  vote " 
millions  to  enroll  Americans  into  an  Army  and  to  arm  them  to  shoot  down  Americans,  . 
hungry,  starving  Americans.  ,  ,-'    • 

Great  God !  Sir,  has  this  great  Republic,  the  hope  of  the  downtrodden  in  other,  lands, 
come  to  this  ?  Shall  she  be  compelled  to  defend  herself  against  herself  with  arms  ?- ,  Has  it 
in  a  short  hundred  years  been  proven  that  this  free  Government  is  a  failure  ?  for  surely  no 
one  will  say  it  is  not  a  failure  if  it  is  forced  to  exist  not  by  the  will  of  the  people,  but  by 
force  of  arms. 

For  many  years  Congress  has  been  legislating  for  the  rich.  Our  taxes  come  not.fr9m  < 
the  rich,  but  from  all  alike.  It  is  what  a  man  eats,  drinks,  and  wears  which  pay  Federal- 
taxes.  A  poor  man  eats  and  drinks  as  much  as  the  rich,  and  pays  the  burden.  Federal' 
burdens  fall  upon  men,  not  upon  wealth.  Colossal  fortunes  are  growing  up  of  aliftostf 
fabulous  proportions  throughout  the  country — fortunes  either  in  the  hands  of  individuals  of 
of  corporations.  None  of  them,  or  but  few  of  them  at  least,  are  producers.  Their  wealth 
is  only  an  aggregation  into  the  pockets  of  the  few  from  the  hands  of  the  many.  Equality 
of  wealth  brings  happiness  to  a  people.  For  years  you  have  been  so  legislating  that  rich 
men  nave  been  growing  richer  and  poor  men  poorer.  The  latter  are  now  poor  to  destitution. 
In  their  name  I  beg  you  to  give  them  bread.  They  ask  it  not  in  alms.  They  are  not 
beggars,  unless  to  ask  to  work  is  to  beg.  They  ask  you  to  give  them  leave  to  win  their  daily 
bread  by  the  sweat  of  their  faces.  They  are  not  idle  because  they  are  unwilling  to  work^ 
but  because  they  cannot  find  work. 

Gentlemen  ask  why  the  people  do  not  go  from  the  cities  to  the  farms.  Ay,  go  to  the" 
farms  to  tramp  by  day  and  sleep  by  the  roadside  at  night — weary  days  tramping  and 
begging,  and  wives  and  children  at  home  starving  or  living  on  charity.  Sir,  men  are  creat- 
ures of  habit.  It  is  hard  to  break  up  habits.  Those  who  are  denizens  of  cities  and  workers 
in  shops  know  not  how  to  work  on  the  farm.  Their  habits  unsuit  them  to  it.  They  hop* 
to  get  work  from  day  to  day,  and  night  after  night  finds  their  hopes  but  ashes  of  deapair.. 
Despair  goes  to  the  bottle  for  its  Lethe.  The  bottle  uncorked  lets  out  its  demon,  and  thous- 
ands who,  with  work  at  moderate  wages  would  be  law-abiding  citizens,  become  law-breakers. 
There  is  no  use  in  preaching  temperance  to  hungry  men  ;  a  dime's  worth  of  whisky 
brings  more  temporary  forgetfulness  than  a  dime's  worth  of  bread.  Men  in  high  places' 
drown  care  in  dissipation.  No  place  in  America  has  yet  been  so  high  as  to  be  exempt.  Give 
the  poor  saan  occupation  and  you  have  preached  a  more  practical  sermon  than  Murphy 
could  with  his  most  impassioned  exhortations. 

Sir,  a  few  great  works  ordered  this  session  by  Congress,  would  do  more  good  than  any  ' 
financial  legislation.  Its  effect  would  be  immediate — and  that  is  what  is  wanted.  Con-- 
tidence  cannot  come  until  employment  shall  commence.  Set  a  hundred  thousand  strong; 
arms  at  work  on  public  undertakings,  and  five  hundred  thousand  will  find  private  employ- 
ment as  a  result. 

Do  this,  and  you  may  cut  down  your  Army,  and  there  will  be  no  great  breaches  of  trie 
peace.  Eefuse  this,  and  an  army  will  be  necessary  and  the  road  will  be  prepared  over  which 
the  Iron-Man  now  across  the  water  learning  the  ways  of  kings,  will  march  to  despotism 
Already  men  who  think  more  of  immediate  security  than  of  their  country's  liberty  are 
talking  of  him.  Communism  sends  them  to  bed  dreaming  of  rifled  strong-boxes  Their 
morning  prayer  is  for  Grant ;  and  Grant  means  a  republic  in  name,  but  an  empire  in  fact  • 
with  wealth  instead  of  blood  the  source  of  aristocracy. 

Sir,  communism  was.  born  of  Bourbon  oppression,  of  taxes  on  the  poor,  but  exemption 
from  taxes  for  the  rich.  Kings  have  nursed  the  commune,  and  then  have  had  the  prudence 
to  feed  its  members.  Unequal  taxation  in  America  is  fostering  the  French  exotic  and  we 
are  asked  to  stifle  it  with  bayonets  and  bullets,  when  the  shovel  and  the  pick  in  the  hands 
of  the  commune  will  cause  it  to  die  a  natural  death.  Sir,  give  the  people  work  and  von 
may  cut  your  Army  down  to  a  skeleton. 


SPEECH  OF 

HON.  CARTER  H.  HARRISON, 

DELIVERED  NOV.  7,  1877, 

ON  THE  REPEAL  OP  THE  RESUMPTION  BILL. 

I  did  not  intend  to  make  a  speech,  but  after  the  speech  to  which  we  have  listened  from 
the  gentleman  from  Iowa  [Mr.  PRICK]  I  feel  constrained  to  answer  some  of  his  arguments. 
The  gentleman  let  his  eagle  fly  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  and  takes  the  position  that 
this  country  is  not  to  be  measured  by  other  lands  Mr.  Speaker,  that  is  the  misfortune  in 
this  country.  We  have  been  constantly  putting  ourselves  upon  high  places,  and  thanking 
God  we  are  not  as  other  men ;  that  we,  the  great  American  people,  are  not  to  be  governed 
by  the  rules  that  govern  the  people  of  other  lands.  We  imagine  that  we  are  a  different 
people  from  other  people,  and  that  the  system  of  finance  which  is  proper  in  other  lands  is 
not  proper  in  this.  He  tells  us  our  land  could  hold  any  one  of  these  foreign  lands  and  not 
miss  the  space  it  occupies ;  that  a  railroad  train  can  run  from  one  end  of  one  of  these  lands 
to  the  other  in  a  day,  while  here  it  would  take  ten  days  to  perform  the  same  feat. 

Sir,  France,  with  an  area  so  small  that  a  locomotive  can  run  from  one  end  of  it  to  the 
other  between  sunrise  and  sunset,  yet  has  a  bank  circulation  of  five  hundred  and  sixty-one 
millions,  a  paper  never  dishonored  by  the  government  that  issued  it;  a  paper  that  has  been 
receivable  from  the  first  for  every  due  that  the  government  demanded  from  the  people  ;  not 
a  paper  that  a  debtor  may  pay  to  his  creditor  outside,  but  is  refused  by  the  government  for 
its  own  dues  ;  a  paper  that  the  government  took  and  takes  for  his  own  debts  ;  a  paper,  which, 
honored  by  the  government  that  put  it  afloat,  has  been  all  the  time  nearly  at  par  with  coin, 
and  has  for  two  years  been  absolutely  at  par.  There  are  in  the  Bank  of  France  to-day  two 
thousand  and  odd  millions  of  francs  in  coin,  over  $400,000,000;  and  circulating  among  the 
people  in  coin  between  five  hundred  and  eight  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  making  in  all 
between  one  thousand  and  twelve  hundred  millions  of  coin,  and  five  hundred  and  sixty-one 
millions  of  paper  ;  a  grand  total  of  from  fourteen  hundred  and  sixty-one  millions  to  seven- 
teen hundred  and  sixty-one  millions  of  circulation  in  that  little  country  of  France,  where 
you  can  go  from  one  end  of  it  to  another  with  your  bill  of  exchange  in  one  day's  time. 
And  yet  we  are  asked  here  in  America  to  resume  specie  payments,  with  six  hundred  and 
seventy-one  millions  of  paper  to  be  redeemed  and  one  hundred  and  fifty-one  millions  of 
coin  among  the  people  to  redeem  it  with;  with  the  acknowledgment  by  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  that  we  may  have — ay,  may  have !  He  thinks  we  will  have  by  1879  two  hundred 
and  twenty-five  millions  of  coin,  we  are  going  to  redeem  in  this  country,  this  vast  country 
over  which  the  gentleman's  eagle  took  so  long  a  flight,  so  wearisome  a  flight,  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  ;  and  he  says  it  will  bring  no  distress  !  Ah,  no  !  No  distress  to  his 
friend,  the  bondholder.  H-isees  not  the  army  of  begging  men  already  in  distress. 

Sir,  look  again  at  France;  five  hundred  and  sixty-one  millions  of  paper  the  same  as 
coin  ;  four  hundred  millions  in  the  vaults  of  the  Bank  of  France ;  eight  hundred  millions 
among  the  people  ;  making  seventeen  hundred  and  sixty-one  millions  of  money  in  France, 
that  little  country.  And  yet  France  does  not  resume,  and  France  prospers  as  no  other 
nation  on  earth  does  prosper. 

Now  go  to  England,  and  you  will  find  there  are  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  millions 
of  paper,  one  hundred  and  eight  millions  of  coin  in  the  vaults  of  the  Bank  of  England, 
between  five  hundred  and  six  hundred  millions  circulating  among  the  people  in  coin,  in 
that  little  country  where  you  can  start  from  London  and  go  to  Inverness  and  back  again  in 
less  than  forty-eight  hours. 

Mr.  PRICE      Will  the  gentleman  yield  to  me  for  a  question? 

Mr.  HARRISON.     Yes,  sir. 

Mr.  PRICE.  I  wish  to  ask  the  gentleman  whether  I  have  misstated  the  amounts  per 
capita  in  England  and  in  this  country. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  Yes,  sir,  I  will  show  you  how.  In  England  they  have  two  hundred 
and  twenty-five  millions  of  paper,  one  hundred  and  eight  millions  coin  in  the  vaults  of  the 
Bank  of  England,  five  hundred  and  twenty-five  millions  coin  circulating  among  the  people. 
And  that,  sir,  is  considered  as  a  very  moderate  estimate.  You  can  divide  that  amount  by  the 
population  of  England  and  find  the  circulation  per  capita  far  greater  than  here.  In  this 
country  we  have  six  hundred  and  twenty-one  millions  of  circulation,  for  our  coin  can  not 
count  in  this  country.  Our  gold  is  not  money  ;  it  is  simply  a  commodity.  It  is  held  by 


—  11  — 

banks  and  bullionists  as  a  reserve.  Aye,  like  skillful  commanders,  they  hold  this  reserve  in 
hand,  ready  for  that  fatal  day  in  January,  1879,  when  it  can  be  thrown  with  headlong  fury 
upon  the  ranks  of  the  terror-stricken  debtor — upon  the  people  ;  when  mortgages  can  be 
foreclosed  and  the  mortgagee  alone  can  buy  ;  when  sheriffs  and  marshalls  can  sell  and  judg- 
ment creditors  alone  can  purchase.  When  the  bondholder  and  the  bullionist  will  be  taken 
upon  a  high  mount  and  will  be  told  that  all  this  grand  country  shall  be  his.  And  this  time 
the  devil  will  be  able  to  deliver,  and  he  will  deliver.  He  will  deliver  to  the  men  who  for 
year*  have  been  bending  the  knee  to  the  demon  gold,  the  demon  resumption,  and  the  debtors; 
the  people  will  have  no  redress. 

Mr.  HAZELTON.  Will  the  gentleman  allow  me  to  ask  him  where  he  gets  those 
figures  ?  I  simply  want  to  know  for  my  own  satisfaction. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  I  acknowledge  I  am  now  taking  them  from  memory.  [Laughter] 
I  believe,  however,  they  will  be  found  to  be  accurate.  Not  having  statistics  before  me  I 
must  trust  to  memory,  and  it  is  accurate  enough  to  enable  me  to  approximate  to  the  exact 
figures — accurate  enough  for  my  argument. 

Now,  to  go  to  Germany.  There  they  have  two  hundred  and  two  millions  of  paper,  one 
nundred  fifty-four  millions  of  coin  in  the  vaults,  five  hundred  and  twenty-five  millions  of 
coin  circulating  among  the  people — eight  hundred  and  eighty -one  millions  in  all.  And  yet 
the  gentleman  from  Iowa  says  that  ours  is  the  second  government  in  the  world  in  respect 
to  amount  of  circulation  !  Sir,  1  am  speaking  extempore.  I  had  no  idea  of  speaking  on  this 
question  until  a  few  moments  since.  But  the  gentlemen  from  Iowa  forces  me  to  attempt  to 
refute  his  arguments,  and  if  he  will  take  his  pencil  he  can  easily  find,  by  comparing  the 
actual  circulation  in  this  land  and  in  other  countries  with  the  respective  population  of  diff- 
erent countries,  that  we  have  the  smallest  circulation  of  any  of  them,  and  vastly  the  smallest; 
and  yet,  owing  to  our  vast  distances,  owing  to  the  huge  distances  which  must  be  traversed 
by  bills  of  exchange — to  say  nothing  of  the  eagle  the  gentleman  let  fly — we  require  a  pro- 
portionably  larger  per  capita  circulation. 

Mr.  PRICE.  I  do  not  want  to  controvert  any  position  the  gentleman  may  assume,  but 
1  make  this  assertion  :  I  assert  from  figures  obtained  from  authentic  sources  that  Germany 
has  a  circulation  of  only  $20  per  capita,  that  England  has  $21.45,  and  that  we  have  $21.99. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  I  have  not  reduced  the  figures  which  are  in  my  memory  and  are 
firmly  fastened  there.  I  have  not  reduced  them  to  show  the  amount  per  capita;  but  if  the 
gentleman  will  figure  it  out  according  to  the  number  of  population  in  this  country  he  will 
find  I  am  correct.  If  he  will  drop  his  golden  pencil  and  use  a  poor  man's  Faber,  he  will  find 
I  am  correct. 

Mr.  PRICE.     You  make  your  figures  ;  I  have  got  mine  from  authentic  sources. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  This  is  in  Germany  ;  a  country  where  you  can  by  the  postal  service 
draw  a  bill  of  exchange  by  lightning  that  will  be  answered  from  one  end  of  the  country  to 
the  other ;  where  the  telegraph  is  a  part  of  the  postal  service ;  where  every  village,  ay, 
every  railway  station  has  its  telegraph  office ;  and  where  twenty  cents  carry  twenty  words 
to  any  point  in  the  German  Empire.  By  the  way,  in  England  and  France  the  same  fact 
exists;  there  lightning  is  but  Jittle  dearer  than  pen,  paper  and  ink.  In  Germany,  a 
country  you  can  reach  every  part  of  by  going  from  the  center  through  either  of  its  provinces 
in  a  single  day  ;  yet  they  have  eight  hundred  and  twenty-two  millions  of  currency  in  paper 
and  coin,  and  we  have  six  hundred  and  seventy-one  millions.  Six  hundred  and  seventy- 
one  millions  of  money;  six  hundred  and  seventy-one  millions  of  the  people's  money.  The 
bullionist's  gold,  the  poor  man,  the  debtor,  the  great  toiling  millions  know  only  by  tradition. 
Gold  is  the  denizen  of  that  to  the  millions  of  toilers  terra  incognita,  the  strong  box  of  the 
Wall  street  bullionist.  Six  hundred  and  seventy-one  millions  divided  by  forty-five  millions 
of  men  inhabiting  thirty-eight  State?,  many  of  them  as  large  as  all  England  ;  many  of  them 
as  large  as  all  France,  as  large  as  all  the  states  of  the  realm  of  Kaiser  Wilhelm.  Divide  six 
hundred  and  seventy-one  millions  by  forty-five  millions,  and  you  have  less  than  $15  per 
capita.  And  yet  we  are  told  we  can  contract  one-half,  to  seven  and  one-half  dollars  per 
capita,  and  we  are  told  it  will  bring  no  distress.  Great  God  !  is  bankruptcy  no  distress? 
Is  ruin,  beggary,  homelessness,  rags,  and  famine  no  distress  ? 

Now,  sir,  let  us  look  a  little  further  and  see  what  will  be  the  effect  of  the  resumption  of 
specie  payments.  We  propose  to  redeem  in  1879  six  hundred  and  seventy-one  millions  of 
paper  with  one  hundred  and  fifty-one  millions  of  coin  to-day  in  the  country,  and  with  the 
hope  expressed  by  Mr.  Sherman  and  by  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  [MR.  GARFIKLD]  that  we 
will  have  two  hundred  and  seventy-five  millions.  Sir,  what  will  this  country,  extending 
over  such  a  vast  area,  do  with  $225,000,000  for  that  purpose  ?  Two  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  milliors  to  base  a  currency  upon,  when  it  is  known  that  no  country  on  earth  ever  sus- 
tained specie  payments  of  paper  unless  the  value  of  its  currency  was  equal  to  the  value  of 
its  coin.  We  did,  before  the  war,  attempt  to  keep  afloat  paper,  when  the  coin  in  the  bank- 
vaults  was  one-third  of  the  circulation.  And  yet  during  the  whole  decade  before  the  war 
there  was  as  much  coin  in  the  United  States  as  paper.  One-third  of  that  coin  was  in  bank- 


—  12  — 

vaults,  but  outside,  among  the  people,  there  was  coin  enough,  together  with  that  in  the  bank- 
vaults,  to  make  an  amount  greater  than  the  paper  in  circulation.  Before  the  war  there 
were  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  millions  paper  and  two  hundred  and  sixty-five  millions 
of  coin  in  bank-vaults  and  in  circulation.  And  yet,  every  ten  years  we  had  panics  which 
forced  suspension  of  specie  payments.  And  now,  with  all  this  knowledge,  it  is  proposed 
that  we  shall  go  on  and  resume,  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  says  that  he  will  be  able 
to  resume  in  1879,  when  he  has  the  history  of  the  world  before  him,  showing  that  it  will 
bring  destruction  to  every  man  who  owes  a  dollar  in  his  land. 

In  1869,  as  a  Senator  from  Ohio,  he  drew  a  picture  of  what  was  to  follow  the  terrible  ca- 
tastrophe of  declaring  a  day  for  specie  resumption.  He  pictured  what  would  follow  in  the 
wake  of  that  act.  He  showed  that  every  man  who  owed  a  hundred  dollars  would  have  to 
pay  $125  and  that  every  man  who  owed  a  hundred  bushels  of  wheat  would  have  to  pay  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  bushels.  Every  man  who  had  bought  a  farm  and  had  paid  one- 
fourth  of  the  debt  would  lose  the  whole.  And  yet  that  man  who  had  so  read  history  and 
understood  what  must  be  the  effect  of  fixing  an  arbitrary  day  for  resumption,  is  to-day  re- 
lentlessly and  remorselessly  urging  specie  resumption,  when  he  knows  that  the  very  bone 
and  sinew  of  the  land,  that  class  that  builds  our  railroads  and  sets  in  motion  our  machinery, 
the  hopeful,  energetic  class,  ever  with  something  in  view,  ever  struggling  to  add  to  the 
world's  wealth,  the  men  who  move  the  material  world,  who  set  its  furnaces  afire  and  dis- 
charge all  the  most  important  duties  of  labor,  will  be  ruined  by  such  an  act. 

The  gentlemen  from  Pennsylvania  since  I  arose  has  spoken  of  the  history  of  England  in 
1819  to  1825,  and  he  has  already  taken  away  from  me  the  point  I  desired  to  make,  for  he  read 
what  I  intended  to  quote  from  memory.  In  1818  there  were  nearly  fifty  millions  in  the  Bank 
of  England ;  in  1819  there  were  forty  millions  and  the  reduction  went  on  step  by  step  until 
in  1821  the  amount  had  been  reduced  to  twenty-eight  millions.  Sir,  what  was  the  result  of 
this  fearful  contraction  ?  Mr.  Allison  tells  us  that  ruin  spread  abroad  in  England.  The 
Bank  of  England  discounts  fell  from  one  hundred  and  three  millions  in  1815  to  twenty-three 
millions  in  1820,  and  then  sank  in  1821  to  thirteen  millions.  The  small  farms  were  sold, 
so  that  to-day  36,000  English  landholders  own  the  lands  which  fell  into  their  hands  in  that 
disastrous  era.  We  are  to  be  driven  on  to  this  state  of  things  in  this  country,  because  we 
are  now  told  we  must  not  violate  the  plighted  faith  of  the  Government.  Ay,  it  is  plighted 
faith  to  the  bondholders.  But  there  is  implied  always  an  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  Gov- 
ernment to  protect  the  interests  of  the  laborer.  There  is  a  plighted  faith  to  him.  The  rich 
can  protect  themselves.  The  Government  alone  can  protect  the  poor.  But  here  every  obli- 
gation appears  to  be  upon  the  poor  man  and  running  to  the  rich  man.  Sir,  England  had 
its  strike,  and  a  large  addition  had  to  be  made  to  its  volunteer  force  to  keep  the  peace.  We 
had  a  strike  here  this  year,  and  I  tell  gentlemen,  if  this  thing  is  not  to  be  stopped — I  make 
no  threat,  but  I  make  a  prophecy — that  People  of  the  West  will  never  submit  to  the  people 
of  the  East  in  robbing  them  for  the  benefit  of  the  bondholders. 

Mr.  PRICE.  I  desire  to  ask  the  gentleman  a  piain  question.  I  want  to  know  whether 
the  laboring-man  will  not  feel  as  good  when  he  gets  a  dollar  worth  one  hundred  cents  as 
when  he  gets  one  worth  ninety-seven  cents  ? 

Mr.  HARRISON.  Ay  !  But  I  call  to  mind  the  fact  that  the  gentleman  did  not  vote  for 
the  silver  bill.  He  says  to  the  laboring-man,  Take  your  dollar  for  your  hard  day's  work 
in  two  half  dollars,  worth  ninety-one  cents  ;  it  is  good  enough  for  you.  And  when  you 
wish  to  pay  your  rent  of  $20  or  your  note  of  $50,  go  and  sell  your  subsidiary  coin  ;  lose  nine 
cents  on  each  dollar. 

Mr.  PRICE.     That  was  all  made  right  in  the  silver  bill. 

Mr.  HARRISON.     But  you  and  the  bulk  of  your  party  did  not  vote  for  the  silver  bill. 
Mr.  PRICE.     I  did. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  Then  there  is  one  step  the  gentleman  has  taken  on  the  right  road. 
Go  on,  and  there  will  be  hope  that  you  may  get  all  right. 

Mr.  PRICE.  We  want  plenty  of  silver  dollars  ;  that  is  what  we  want. 
Mr.  HARRISON.  Ay!  Plenty  of  silver  dollars.  But  all  the  mints  in  all  America 
cannot  coin,  before  1879,  over  $50,000,000.  The  silver  bill  will  do  great  good.  It  will  be 
food  for  the  imagination ;  and  statesmen  should  legislate  for  the  imagination  as  well  as  the 
judgment.  The  silver  bill  will  be  such  food.  It  is  a  step  in  the  right  direction.  The 
laborer,  the  debtor,  sees  in  it  a  glimmer  of  hope  that  Congress  is  not  body  and  soul  the  tool  of 
the  bondholder. 

Sir,  the  gentleman  says  paper  is  to-day  almost  at  par.  That  gold  is  only  worth  1.02|; 
that  we  have  almost  reached  hard-pan.  Hard-pan  !  ay,  hard-pan  to  the  idle  million  of 
willing  toilers.  Hard-pan  !  ay,  hard-pan  to  millions  of  hopeful  men  who  are  willing  to  work  ; 
who  stalk  about  the  country  begging  for  leave  to  toil.  Hard  pan  !  ay,  to  the  million  who 
crave  but  to  earn  their  bread,  as  God  commands,  by  the  sweat  of  their  faces  ;  but  in  want 
of  work  are  the  recipients  of  charity  or  niggardly  credit.  Hard-pan  to  the  millions  of  hope- 
ful men  who  have  put  their  all  into  enterprises  based  upon  prices  which  were  the  result  of 


—  13  — 

the  inflation  which  ruled  from  1866  to  1869.  Millions;  ay,  Mr.  Speaker,  millions  of  farmers, 
mechanics,  house-builders,  forest-cutters,  and  prairie-breakers,  entered  upon  enterprises 
based  upon  those  plethoric  times.  -They  have  hoped  and  hoped  for  better  times.  It  is  hard- 
pan  indeed  for  these  millions. 

But  the  fat  bullionist  leans  upon  his  strong  box,  and  blandly  tells  us  these  men  ought 
not  to  have  gone  in  debt.  They  deserve  to  suffer.  He  pats  his  rounded  vest,  locks  his  box, 
and  with  a  gentle  "tra-la-la"  saunters  off  to  Delmonico's  to  dine  on  terrapin  and  reed-birds, 
and  washes  from  his  mind  all  thought  of  the  starving,  suffering  millions  in  Burgundy  at 
$10  a  bottle 

Sir,  they  tell  us  gold  is  only  2f  above  paper.  Yes,  sir  ;  and  gold  was  only  6  per  cent, 
above  paper  in  1818  in  England,  and  Kicardo  said  that  5  per  cent,  was  the  measure  of  the 
contraction  necessary  to  bring  resumption.  That  5  per  cent,  eliminated  not  only  all  the 
paper  but  nearly  all  the  gold  from  trade.  That  5  per  cent,  banished  confidence  from  the 
British  Isles,  and  but  for  orders  in  council  would  probably  have  driven  the  king  from  his 
throne. 

Sir,  before  the  war,  we  had  in  the  Northwest  a  paper  circulation  which  was  generally 
less  than  1  per  cent,  under  par.  Yet  not  one  of  the  banks  which  issued  that  paper  considered 
it  safe  to  issue  a  five  dollar  bill.  They  issued  ones  and  twos  ;  so  that  when  the  broker  came 
to  the  counter  for  gold  the  teller  could  spend  a  day  in  paying  a  hundred  or  so  dollars.  When 
a  depositor  took  his  money  to  his  bank  the  teller  sorted  it  as  a  huckster  sorts  his  apples,  so 
that  he  could  put  in  one  pigeon-hole  the  notes  of  bank-notes  worth  par,  in  another  the  notes 
worth  a  quarter  less  than  par,  and  so  on.  Those  which  were  1  per  cent,  below  par  he  sent 
off  for  gold,  or  eastern  exchange,  which  was  the  same  thing. 

Now,  sir,  in  1879  Mr.  Sherman  resumes.  The  banker  will  sort  his  money.  His  green- 
backs he  will  put  in  one  drawer,  his  national  bank  notes,  of  banks  near  by,  in  another,  those 
of  far-off  banks  in  another.  He  will  send  his  greenbacks  and  get  gold.  If  gold  is  worth 
1  per  cent,  premium,  he  can  send  his  notes  from  Cincinnati,  Saint  Louis,  and  Chicago  to 
New  York  and  get  gold,  sell  it  and  get  his  return  in  five  days.  In  thirty  days  he  will  make 
6  per  cent.  If  gold  is  £  per  cent  premium,  he  will  make  in  thirty  days  3  per  cent.  If  it  is 
worth  J  per  cent,  he  will  make  1  £  per  cent.  Sir,  what  legitimate  business,  even  in  good 
times,  can  compete  with  such  interest  ? 

Sir,  we  may  reach  resumption  by  the  present  road.  But  we  shall  do  so  by  ruining 
thousands.  Prices  of  labor  may  continue  so  low  that  we  may  undersell  foreign  pauper  labor. 
"We  may  continue  to  increase  the  balance  of  trade  in  our  favor.  Continue  to  reduce  wages 
and  America  will  become  a  land  of  paupers  and  will  be  able  to  compete  with  the  pauperism 
of  other  lands.  This  may  sustain  resumption.  But  is  it  to  be  desired  under  such  circum- 
stances. Sir,  Repeal  your  resumption  law.  Leave  the  matter  to  the  business  interests  of  the 
Country,  and  then  resumption  will  be  reached  by  easy  stages,  by  healthy  growth,  which 
will  ruin  none,  which  will  not  enrich  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many. 

The  national  banks  will  have  to  redeem  in  greenbacks,  so  that  national  bank  notes  will 
be  worth  but  little  under  greenbacks,  so  that  half  per  cent,  premium,  when  the  United  States 
shall  be  the  payer — payer  of  large  notes — will  be  difference  enough  between  gold  and  paper 
to  drive  out  of  existence  nearly  all  the  circulation.  And  then  we  will  reach  hard-pan  indeed. 
And  then  one  wail  will  be  heard  from  one  end  of  the  land  to  the  other.  A  wail,  not  from 
railroad  employes  but  from  every  class  of  laborers.  A  wail  which  will  soon  be  turned  to 
curses.  Curses  deep,  long,  bitter  ! 

Sir,  I  plead  to  the  East  not  to  press  this  people  too  far.  The  pulpy  worm  will  turn 
upon  the  foot  which  presses  it.  Beware  of  a  people  who  are  the  governors  of  this  land  :  the 
holders  of  its  ballots.  The  West  pleads  to  the  East.  The  people  pleads.  They  tell  you  they 
are  patient,  but  think  not  that  Delilah  has  shorn  them  of  all  their  locks.  Their  locks  are 
upon  brawny  shoulders.  Your  temple  may  be  upon  solid  rock,  but  its  pillars  are  neither  so 
strong  nor  so  far  apart  that  they  cannot  reach  them.  Beware  lest  you  laugh  not  too  loud  at 
their  eyeless  agony,  for  in  their  hungry  famine  they  may  reach  out  their  arms  and  crush 
you  and  your  golden  fabric. 

Georgia  lately  repudiated  a  debt  fastened  upon  her  by  fraud.  The  people  are  beginning 
to  think  that  a  coin-drawing  bond  is  a  fraud,  and  the  people,  when  moved  by  hungry  frenzy, 
are  not  good  or  cool  logicians.  Thousands  of  men  in  some  of  the  rich  eastern  cities  are 
already  dreaming  of  an  empire,  with  themselves  the  moneyed  aristocracy.  Let  them  remember 
that  republics  turn  not  to  empires,  except  through  a  baptism  of  blood. 

Mr.  KELLEY.     I  move  that  the  House  do  now  adjourn. 


SPEECH  OF 

HON.  CARTER  H.  HARRISON, 

OF    ILLINOIS. 
IN  THE  HOUSE  or  REPRESENTATIVES, 

Friday,  June  7,  1878. 
The  House  having  under  consideration  the  bill  (H.  R.  No.  2133)  to  fix  the  pay  of  letter  carriers — 

Mr.  HARRISON  said  : 

Mr.  SPEAKER:  I  will  not  avail  myself  of  the  general  privilege  which  has  just  been 
given  to  gentlemen  to  print  their  remark*  on  this  bill  in  the  RECORD.  I  find  it  much  easier 
to  have  the  stenographers  write  for  me  than  to  write  for  myseli.  But  I  do  not  propose  to 
occupy  the  attention  of  the  House  for  any  length  of  time,  as  it  is  so  late 

I  had  hoped,  sir,  to  have  the  opportunity  of  discussing  this  question  at  length  to-night, 
for  it  is  one  to  me  of  very  great  interest  and  I  think  of  very  great  interest  to  the  country. 
But,  sir,  we  have  wasted  now  three  hours  and  a  half — 

Mr.  BANKS.     Not  we;  we  did  not  do  it. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  In  child's  play.  When  I  said  "  we  "  I  meant  the  House  or  rather 
the  enemies  of  the  bill  in  the  House  who  have  wasted  time. 

Mr.  BANKS.     That  is  it. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  Very  well,  sir.  I  will  then  put  it,  that  this  evening  has  been 
wasted  in  idle  wrangling  by  the  enemies  of  this  bill,  by  the  enemies  of  a  class  of  men  as 
worthy  of  protection  and  of  recognition  as  any  other  class  of  men  in  the  United  States. 

Mr.  Speaker,  the  advantages  of  postal  facilities  runs  pari  passu  in  every  land  with  the 
progress  of  education  and  of  knowledge.  And  what  wonderful  strides  have  men  made  in 
this  direction  in  your  and  my  recollection  !  When  I  first  went  off  as  a  boy  to  a  distant 
school,  my  letters  from  my  home  in  Kentucky  took  about  seven  days  to  reach  me  at  my 
New  England  college.  I  had  to  pay  on  each  single  letter  a  postage  of  twenty-five  cents,  a 
rather  heavy  tax  upon  my  slender  allowances.  To-day  I  get  a  letter  from  Chicago  in  less 
than  two  days,  and  I  pay  three  cents  postage ;  a  letter  reaches  me  from  far-off  Germany 
thirteen  days  after  it  is  indited,  and  the  postage  is  five  cents. 

Sir,  this  old  world  of  ours,  which  four  hundred  years  ago  was  thought  to  be  an  almost 
boundless  realm,  its  unknown  ultima  Thule  at  an  almost  fabulous  distance,  is  grown  to  be 
but  a  little  globe.  I  can  recall  the  feelings  of  half  awe  with  which  I  Ic-oked  for  the 
first  time  upon  a  man  who  had  been  around  the  world.  I  was  fast  approaching  my  manhood, 
but  I  almost  wondered  at  his  dark  hair ;  he  had  been  around  the  world  and  was  yet  too 
young  to  be  gray  !  Three  years  since  I  was  journeying  from  Chicago  to  New  York  with  a 
Swiss  of  seventy-six  years,  who  was  making  all  alone  a  pleasure  trip  around  our  sphere 
He  had  gone  by  way  of  Suez,  India,  and  China,  to  Japan  ;  had  crossed  the  broad  Pacific 
and  this  continent,  and  would  reach  his  Alpine  home  within  six  months  from  the  day  he 
left  it.  In  1876  I  met  an  Englishmen  aboard  a  ship  from  New  York  to  Liverpool,  who 
had  started  for  China  eastward  from  London  eighty-three  days  before.  He  girdled  the 
globe  in  about  ninety  days,  and  said  he  had  not  been  in  a  hurry. 

Steam  carries  our  persons  around  the  world  in  eighty  days,  and  the  lightning  flashes 
our  thoughts  over  the  same  track  while  our  heart  records  a  few  of  its  pulsations.  Man  has 
caught  the  powerful  forces  of  nature ;  his  genius  has  harnessed  steam  and  its  boundless 
strength,  and  it  bears  him  over  mountain  roads  and  over  the  pathless  ocean,  more  tractable 
than  the  gentlest  horse.  A  bridle  has  been  put  upon  the  subtle  lightning,  and  it  is  guided 
through  the  air,  beneath  the  earth,  and  along  the  unseen  depths  of  oceans,  by  a  less  devious 
path  than  that  on  which  is  led  the  meek- eyed  ox. 

Sir,  "  progress"  and  "  onward"  are  the  rallying  words  of  this  generation.  In  nothing 
should  progress  be  more  encouraged  than  in  bringing  our  people  together  in  every  part  ot 
the  land.  The  telegraph  annihilates  space  and  time  ;  but  the  telegraph  cannot  carry  our 
lengthy  messages  to  our  friends  or  to  our  business  correspondents ;  it  cannot  convey  our 
confidential  communications  ;  these  must  be  borne  by  the  mail. 

Fast  and  regular  mail-carriage  is  the  first  requisite  for  this  service.  The  second  is,  fast 
and  regular  distribution  of  the  mails  when  carried.  The  first  step  in  this  latter  direction 
was  the  system  of  boxes,  into  which  the  citizen  could  see  if  he  had  anything  due  him  with- 
out waiting  for  the  old  slow  process  of  general  delivery.  This  required  many  clerks.  Then 
came  the  l.jck-box,  which  enables  one  to  receive  his  mails  without  the  aid  of  a  delivery 
clerk.  And  finally  came  the  free  carrier  system. 


—  15  — 

The  style  "  free  delivery  "  misleads  very  many  persons.  It  is  a  misnomer.  It  is  free 
delivery  of  all  letters  bearing  a  three-cent  stamp,  but  it  is  not  free  delivery  of  local  letters. 
A  drop-letter  bearing;  a  one-cent  stamp  is  delivered  at  the  office  to  callers,  and  necessitates 
a  clerieal  force  sufficient  for  the  proper  distribution  and  delivery  thereof.  But  in  cities, 
having  the  carrier  system,  one-cent  drop-letters  are  rare.  A  two-cent  stamp  gives  the 
drop-letter  to  the  carrier,  and  in  consideration  of  the  additional  stamp  he  delivers  the  letter 
at  the  place  to  which  it  is  addressed. 

Now,  sir,  what  do  the  statistics  of  these  local  letters  show?  That  at  first  the  facilities 
of  the  system  were  not  understood  by  the  people.  They  did  not  avail  themselves  of  it,  and 
for  a  number  of  years  the  carrier  system  .was  a  tax  upon  the  Post-Office  Department.  By 
steady  degrees  the  receipts  have  been  approaching  nearer  and  nearer  each  year  to  the  ex- 
penses. In  1875  equality  was  reached  and  receipts  were  greater  than  expenses ;  I  mean  the 
receipts  in  cities  having  the  carriers,  passed  beyond  the  expenses  in  such  cities  In  1877 
the  profits  exceeded  $360,000;  and  taking  the  period  elapsed  of  the  present  fiscal  year  as  a 
guide  for  the  whole  year,  the  profits  will  exceed  a  half  million. 

Sir,  in  making  these  estimates  only  the  local  matter  has  been  brought  into  calculation — 
only  the  receipts  and  expenses  of  the  delivery  of  local  matter  paying  a  stamp  of  two  cents. 

But,  sir,  there  is  another  factor  which  should  be  taken  into  calculation.  The  corre- 
spondence of  business  men  in  cities  having  carriers,  is  not  exclusively  with  those  who  also 
live  in  the  same  class  of  cities.  Their  correspondence  is  mostly  with  people  in  the  country 
or  in  small  towns.  They  receive  their  letters  freely  and  frequently  ;  they  answer  the  more 
freely  and  more  frequently.  I  am  at  my  desk  in  a  city';  the  carrier  comes  in,  hands  me  a 
letter.  Knowing  he  will  soon  be  around  gathering  up  the  mails,  I  answer  while  the  thing 
is  fresh,  and  the  Government  receives  my  three  cents.  Whereas  if  I  got  my  letters  less 
frequently  and  at  the  post-office,  I  would  wait  till  I  reach  my  office  to  answer;  and  waiting 
breeds  waiting. 

This  may  seem  at  first  glance  a  strained  argument ;  but  let  any  one  look  into  the  main- 
springs of  his  actions,  and  he  will  find  that  there  can  be  no  calculation  as  to  the  effects  ot 
these  habits  of  promptitude  thus  engendered  Go,  sir,  into  a  city  office  and  mark  the 
difference  as  to  promptness  and  regularity  between  the  mode  of  doing  business  there  and  in 
a  country  town. 

And  this  effect  is  not  produced  alone  among  business  correspondence.  It  extends  to 
the  social  interchange  of  letters.  A  letter  comes  to  a  person  in  the  country  ;  it  is  read  and 
laid  by  to  be  answered  hereafter.  How  often  do  we  find  that  the  hereafter  is  not  reached 
for  days  or  weeks,  or  perhaps  drops  forever  out.  But  in  a  city,  a  letter  comes  to  my  house  ; 
it  is  read  and  at  once  answered,  and  my  answer  goes  into  the  street-box  close  by,  one  of  the 
adj  uncts  of  the  carrier  system. 

Sir,  I  remember  well  when  postage  was  dropped  down  from  twenty-five  cents.  People 
said  it  would  ruin  the  Government.  The  farmer  thought  he  was  to  be  taxed  out  ot  exist- 
ence for  the  benefit  of  silly  letter-writers.  What  is  the  use  of  so  many  letters,  he  thought. 
Not  long  since  I  read  an  old  letter  from  my  grandfather  in  Kentucky  to  my  father  at 
college  in  Virginia.  He  acknowledges  with  thanks  a  letter  written  two  months  before, 

brought  by  politeness  of  Mr. .  And  when  I  was  at  school  two  letters  a  month  was  all 

my  widowed  mother  exacted.  But  when  my  family  was  abroad  for  three  years  beyond  the 
ocean,  I  averaged  writing  and  receiving  two  letters  a  week. 

Why  is  this?  Increasing  facilities  cause  to  grow  increasing  desires  until  they  become 
necessities  of  habit.  A  three-cent  postage  has  not  proved  injurious  to  the  country's  finan- 
ces. It  is  the  transportation  of  other  matters  than  letters  and  postal  cards  which  causes 
the  deficiency  in  the  Post-Office  Department.  And  even  now  the  deficiency  does  not  arise 
in  the  cities  of  carriers,  nor  in  the  States  where  they  principally  abound. 

Sir,  I  must  think  the  opposition  to  this  bill  comes  with  bad  grace  from  many  members 
who  oppose  it.  The  opposition  comes  almost  exclusively  from  gentlemen  representing 
comparatively  sparsely  settled  districts.  They  seem  to  think  they  and  their  constituents 
have  no  interest  in  the  thing,  and  that  we  are  trying  to  add  to  their  burdens.  In  this, 
with  due  respect  to  them,  I  must  say  they  are  mistnken. 

I  have  shown  how  the  expenses  in  what  I  will  call,  for  short,  carrier  cities  are  less  than 
the  receipts,  and  less  than  the  receipts  on  local  matter.  But  permit  me  to  call  their  atten- 
tion to  another  feature  of  the  matter.  How  do  the  people  of  cities  live  and  for  whom  do 
they  work  ?  For  the  people  in  the  country.  Do  away  with  the  country  and  cities  will 
tumble  down  Do  away  with  cities  and  the  people  in  the  country  will  cease  to  grow  rich 
or  to  enjoy  any  luxuries  except  those  grown  under  their  individual  daily  toil.  The  farmer 
of  Illinois  and  the  West  could  eat  their  hog  and  hominy,  but  they  would  soon  drop  into  an 
aimless  life;  and  the  planters  of  South  Carolina  would  boil  and  consume  their  rice. 
Through  the  towns  and  cities  is  the  interchange  of  commodities  which  elevates  all  and 
makes  life  a  joy. 

The  farmer  sells  his  produce  to  the  merchant  in  the  city  and  buys  from  him  his  goods. 


—  16  — 

They  are  in  constant  communication,  constant  bargaining;  perhaps  not  directly,  bat 
through  the  agency  of  the  merchant  of  the  smaller  town.  Every  facility  for  doing  business 
given  to  the  man  in  the  city,  helps  more  or  less  directly  the  man  in  the  country,  as  evflry 
growing,  waxing  day  on  the  farm  benefits  the  dependent  people  in  the  city.  Prosperous 
farmers  build  up  cities ;  prosperous  cities  make  the  farmer  rich  and  happy. 

But,  sir,  it  is  not  a  fair  thing  for  gentlemen  representing  country  districts,  especially 
country  districts  sparsely  settled,  to  decry  the  carrier  system.  The  expense  of  the  Pogt- 
Office  Department  last  year  was,  in  round  numbers,  $31,000,000;  the  receipts,  $28,500,000, 
in  round  numbers.  Now,  sir,  the  belt  of  country  which  contain  the  bulk  of  the  eighty- 
seven  free-delivery  cities  extends  from  Massachusetts  west  of  Iowa.  This  belt  contains  fifty- 
nine  out  of  these  eighty-seven  carrier  cities.  Six  States  in  this  belt,  Massachusetts,  New 
York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois,  have  forty-three  of  these  cities.  These 
are  the  States  through  which  the  great  trunk  lines  of  railroads  run.  These  great  railroads 
carry  vast  numbers  of  tons  of  mail  matter,  and  are  paid  a  large  portion  of  the  money  which 
is  the  outlay  of  the  Post-Office  Department.  A  great  portion  of  this  outlay  is  for  through 
mails,  which  go  to  other  States,  and  therefore  is  not  properly  chargeable  to  the  citizens  of 
these  six  States. 

Yet,  sir,  we  find  that  out  of  the  $31,000,000  expended  by  the  Department,  $14,000,000 
are  expended  in  these  six  States.  That  is  a  million  and  a  half  dollars  less  than  one-half  of 
the  whole  amount  expended.  And  bear  in  mind  that  a  large  portion  of  that  expenditure  is 
for  through  mails  distributed  at  Boston,  New  York,  and  Philadelphia,  for  foreign  countries 
from  all  parts  of  America  ;  and  carried  to  Philadelphia,  Cincinnati,  Louisville,  Saint  Louis, 
and  Chicago,  to  be  distributed  for  the  great  South  and  West — to  the  whole  Union,  in  fact. 
In  fine,  a  very  large  portion  of  that  $14,000,000  should  be  charged  up  to  the  more  sparsely 
settled  States. 

Now  mark  the  other  side  of  the  balance-sheet.  The  receipts  of  the  Departments  from 
all  the  States  and  Territories  were  last  year  $28,400,000,  while  the  receipts  from  those  six 
States  were  $15,162,000,  about  one  million  more  than  one-half  of  all  of  the  receipts.  Thus 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  Government  makes  a  profit  of  $2,500,000  by  its  mail  service  in  those 
six  States.  And  if  those  six  States  should  be  credited  with  the  cost  of  the  through  mails 
passing  through  them,  it  would  be  found  that  those  six  States  pay  a  profit  to  the  Govern- 
ment of  not  far  from  $3,000,000,  to  $4,000,000,  and  that  the  belt  of  States  in  which  are 
located  two-thirds  of  the  free-delivery  cities,  would  pay  into  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States  a  profit  of  from  four  to  six  millions  of  dollars  on  its  postal  service. 

The  Post-Office  Department  could  put  a  free  delivery  into  every  town  of  five  thousand 
people  in  this  belt  of  States,  and  the  mail  service  would  not  cost  the  Government  one  cent 
if  it  were  not  for  those  States  more  sparsely  settled,  the  Kepresentatives  from  which  decry 
the  free-delivery  system  on  this  floor. 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  do  not  understand  me  for  one  moment  to  complain  of  the  fact  that 
other  States  are  thus  an  expense  to  the  Government ;  far  from  it.  I  wish  to  give  them 
every  facility  within  the  power  of  the  Government.  But  I  have  set  forth  these  facts,  be- 
cause I  believe  these  gentlemen  from  the  country  districts  have  not  had  their  attention 
drawn  to  them. 

Mr. .     Will  the  gentleman  allow  me  to  ask  him  a  question  ? 

Mr.  HARBISON.    Oh,  yes 

Mr. .     You  speak  of  country  districts  and  country  people.     Do  you   think  it  fair 

and  just  that  the  mail  should  be  delivered  to  citizens  of  cities  by  letter-carriers,  while  at 
the  same  time  country  people  have  to  travel  ten  or  fifteen  miles  to  get  their  letters  ? 

Mr.  HARRISON.  My  friend  has  just  come  in.  If  he  had  heard  my  remarks  a  few 
moments  since  he  would  not  have  asked  that  question.  The  constituents  of  the  gentleman 
corresponding  with  constituents  of  my  own,  or  buying  goods  and  selling  products  to  them, 
reap  a  part  of  the  benefit  of  the  free  delivery  ;  not  directly,  but  indirectly.  That  I  have 
been  trying  to  show  in  my  remarks,  which  the  gentleman  has  not  heard.  Sir,  in  England 
to-day  the  letter-carriers  go  to  every  hamlet,  and  I  hope  to  see  the  same  in  this  country,  or 
at  least  in  the  more  thickly  settled  parts  of  the  land. 

Mr. .     Let  us  do  that  first,  before  you  extend  the  system  into  the  cities.     The 

country  builds  your  cities. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  It  took  the  eternal  Jehovah  six  days  to  build  the  universe  ;  and  we 
cannot  build  up  this  country  in  a  day.  If  the  gentleman  will  read  my  remarks  when 
printed  he  will  see  I  have  made  no  invidious  remarks  about  the  country  districts.  Sir,  I 
am  one  of  those  who  believe  that  the  farmer  is  the  bed-rock  upon  which  the  nation's  wealth 
is  built.  The  farmer  is  the  man  who  gives  us  all  the  wealth  of  the  land,  and  far  be  it  from 
me  to  do  anything  which  can  possibly  injure  him.  And  if  the  gentleman  would  try  to  give 
his  farmer  constituents  the  facts  in  this  matter,  he  will  do  well.  I  would  suggest  that  he 
scatter  my  speech  among  them. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  did  not  intend  at  this  late  hour  to  say  as  much  as  I  have,  but  I  hope 


yoi  will  indulge  me  for  a  few  moments  longer.  I  regret  very  much  that  I  did  not  get 
thi  floor  when  the  House  was  fuller,  for  I  was  very  anxious  to  be  heard  on  this  question. 
Si1,  I  presented  a  petition,  signed  by,  I  think,  about  six  thousand  Chicago  business  men, 
asnng  us  to  do  justice  to  the  carrier.  I  looked  on  the  petition  and  saw  that  our  best  men's 
nanes  were  appended  to  it.  Petitions  have  come  up  from  many  other  cities;  in  fact  I 
betieve  from  every  one  of  the  eighty-seven  in  which  there  are  free  deliveries.  I  think  the 
prayer  of  these  petitions  should  be  affirmatively  answered. 

Sir,  in  my  city  there  are  one  hundred  and  fifty-seven  carriers.  Last  year  they  deli- 
vered nineteen  million  letters,  besides  vast  quantities  of  papers  and  periodicals.  These 
m«n,  in  addition  to  this,  gather  up  probably  as  many  more  letters  from  the  street  boxes. 

They  leave  their  homes  at  six  in  the  morning.  They  first  receive  and  sort  out  their 
letters  and  papers,  and  then  they  start  on  their  tread-mill  labor.  In  sunshine  and  shadow, 
through  storm  and  sweltering  heat,  through  rain  and  snow,  from  early  morning  till  late  in 
the  afternoon,  they  are  tramping,  tramping — all  day  on  the  tramp.  With  haversack  on 
shoilder,  weighing  from  fifteen  to  thirty  pounds,  they  trudge  through  mud  and  slush, 
cliabing  stairs  or  descending  into  basements — many  of  them  walking  over  twenty  miles  a 
day — bearing  tidings  of  gladness,  or  carrying  woe-burdened  letters  ;  bearing  packages  of 
jewe.ry,  checks,  money,  bees  and  horned  frogs,  sermons  filled  with  spiritual  light,  and 
tinted  missives  redolent  of  amorous  longings  ;  specimen  bottles  of  sparkling  wine,  and  sen- 
atorial wit  franked  from  the  other  end  of  this  Capitol ;  photographs,  laudanum,  and  sopori- 
fic eloquence  from  this  Hall. 

Sir,  many  of  these  carriers  have  an  arm  or  a  hand  buried  on  some  southern  field.  All 
must  bs  alert,  agile,  and  quick-witted,  able  to  spell  a  name  over  which  you  or  I  would  give 
up  in  despair.  All  must  be  strong  of  body  and  of  an  honesty  above  suspicion. 

Sir,  it  does  seem  to  me  that  if  any  class  of  men  in  governmental  employ  should  be  ade- 
quately paid  it  is  the  carrier.  Their  average  pay  cow  is  under  $800,  three-fifths  of  what 
is  paid  yonder  gentleman  who  pulls  a  string  to  open  the  door  for  us  to  enter  this  Hall  dur- 
ing the  half  of  each  day  of  the  session.  Our  friend  there  knows  nothing  but  rest  and  is 
weary  of  it.  The  carrier  knows  no  rest  from  early  morning  to  late  afternoon.  If  he  be  sick 
for  a  day  he  has  to  put  some  one  to  work  in  his  place.  He  has  no  one  to  spell  him,  or 
rather  he  has  to  pay  for  his  alternate  in  the  event  of  sickness  to  himself  or  to  his  family. 
A  few  of  these  alternates  are  attached  to  each  office.  They  supply  the  places  of  those  who 
are  sick.  They  average  about  $400  a  year,  taken  from  the  wages  of  those  whose  places 
they  supply. 

These  men  I  suspect  do  more  hard  work  than  any  other  class  of  employes  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  Government ;  not  simply  manual  labor,  but  brain  labor  as  well.  A  good  car- 
rier should  be  capable  of  being  good  at  almost  any  business,  and  he  should  have  a  physique 
fit  for  a  hod-carrier.  My  friend  there  who  objects  to  this  bill  has  his  mail  brought  to  his 
room  morning  and  evening,  and  during  the  day  he  claps  his  hands  for  a  page  and  sends 
him  down  to  the  post-office ;  yet,  sir,  he  is  unwilling  that  the  businessmen  of  the  cities  should 
have  the  facilities  which  the  carrier  system  gives,  though  all  of  those  advantages  aid  the 
city  merchant  to  do  a  better  part  by  and  for  the  people  in  the  country.  The  farmer  fur- 
nishes the  foundation  of  the  nation's  wealth,  but  it  is  the  city  man  who  moves  that  wealth. 
It  is  he  who  takes  the  idle  grain  from  the  farmer's  barn  and  by  the  alchemy  of  trade  and 
exchange  turns  it  into  silks  and  fine  linens. 

Sir,  I  and  my  constituents  make  our  bread  by  doing  the  barter  for  the  farmer.  Directly 
or  indirectly  I  am  working  for  him  and  making  him  work  for  me.  My  office  is  one  or  two 
miles  from  the  post-office.  The  letters  of  my  country  correspondents  are  brought  to  me  by 
the  carrier.  They  receive  immediate  attention.  If  there  were  no  carriers  I  would  get  my 
letters  less  frequently  and  thereby  my  correspondents  would  not  be  so  promptly  attended 
to,  or  I  would  have  my  clerk  go  oftener  to  the  post-office  and  I  would  in  one  way  or  an- 
other charge  up  his  salary  to  my  correspondents. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  said  there  was  a  mistaken  notion  among  many  that  the  carrier  system 
was  a  free  delivery,  and  was  run  at  the  expense  of  the  portions  of  the  country  not  so  favored. 
I  have  shown  that  it  was  a  misnomer  to  call  it  a  free  delivery ;  that  its  expenses  were  di- 
rectly defrayed  by  the  local  business  of  the  places  in  which  if  is  in  vogue,  and  have  tried  to 
show  that  it  increased  largely  the  receipts  of  the  office. 

This  latter  proposition  is  not  susceptible  of  positive  and  direct  proof.  That  can  be 
shown  only  by  circumstances  tending  to  corroborate  the  proposition.  It  can  be  shown 
how  rapidly  the  business  of  different  offices  has  grown  under  the  system,  and  when  such 
growth  is  vastly  greater  than  the  growth  of  population,  we  may  assume  that  it  is  owing  to 
the  system,  more  or  less. 

Ten  years  ago  the  letters  distributed  at  Chicago  amounted  to,  in  round  numbers,  six 
and  half  millions  per  annum.  That  was  the  fourth  year  of  the  existence  of  the  system  in 
that  city.  Four  years  later — that  is,  in  1872 — the  letters  distributed  had  grown  to  more 
than  double  ;  that  is,  they  reached  the  number  of  thirteen  millions  five  hundred  thousand. 


—  18  —     . 

In  1876  they  were  three  times  as  great,  being  nearly  twenty  millions.  And  yet,  sir,  it 
that  time  the  population  has  not  increased  over  40  per  cent.,  and  the  last  four  years  havs 
been  years  of  disaster  and  ruin. 

In  1868  Cincinnati  delivered  two  and  a  half  millions  of  letters  ;  in  1872,  five  millions; 
in  1876,  neaily  eight  millions.  Boston  has  increased  steadily  from  four  millions  to  four 
teen  millions;  New  York,  from  nineteen  millions  to  fifty-five  millions  ;  Philadelphia,  fron 
ten  millions  to  thirty  two  millions — that  is,  from  1868  to  1876,  a  period  of  eight  year. 
The  increase  in  all  other  cities  has  been  at  a  like  pace,  and  in  them  all  steadily  from  yetr 
to  year.  And  I  understand  from  1876  to  1878  the  progression  has  been  of  a  like  characte  . 

In  1870  the  Government  expended  on  the  carrier  system,  over  and  above  local  receipt , 
about  $600,000 ;  in  1872,  $400,000;  in  1873,  $300,000;  in  1874,  $191,000;  in  1875,  t«e 
balance  shifted  to  the  other  side  of  the  sheet  and  showed  a  profit  of  about  $60,000 ;  in  187  , 
of  $84,000;  in  1877,  of  over  $300,000;  and  this  year  it  is  estimated  there  will  be  a  clejir 
profit  of  nearly  $600,000.  In  1870,  when  Government  lost  by  the  system,  there  were  1,352 
carriers.  In  1875,  when  the  balance  was  turned,  there  were  2,195  carriers,  and  in  1$7 
there  were  2,265. 

Thus  have  the  postal  receipts  over  and  above  the  expenses  steadily  increased,  and'in- 
creased  as  the  carrier  facilities  have  been  increased.  Sir,  I  read  somewhere  that  in  England 
the  great  reduction  of  postage  from  a  shilling  to  finally  a  penny  was  started  from  ai  in- 
cident brought  to  the  notice  of  the  gentleman  who  brought  about  the  reduction.  One  day 
he  saw  a  servant  girl  take  a  letter  from  a  postman  and  examine  it,  and  turn  it  up  and  iown, 
and  finally  return  it  with  a  tear  in  her  eye  and  the  remark  on  her  lips,  that  she  knew  it 
was  from  her  brother  but  she  had  not  the  shilling  to  pay  for  it.  The  gentleman  out  ot 
charity  paid  the  shilling,  and  gave  the  letter  to  the  girl,  and  when  he  observed  she  showed 
no  pleasure  in  receiving  it,  he  questioned  her  closely  and  learned  that  there  was  nothing  in 
the  letter,  but  there  were  some  marks  on  the  outside  which  told  her  that  her  brother  was 
well ;  that  they  corresponded  in  that  way  and  saved  postage.  He  resolved  then  to  work  to 
reduce  postage  and  succeeded,  and  to-day  by  charging  a  penny  a  letter,  with  free  delivery 
everywhere,  even  in  parts  of  the  country,  the  post-office  brings  revenue  into  the  British 
treasury. 

Sir,  Government  forbids  to  private  parties  the  right  to  carry  mails ;  it  demands  and 
holds  for  itself  the  right ;  it  should  not  attempt  to  make  the  right  and  practice  a  source  of 
revenue ;  it  should,  however,  make  it  as  nearly  self-sustaining  as  can  be  consistent  with 
efficiency. 

Now,  I  hold  it  should  give  to  each  locality  all  the  facilities  demanded  by  it  which 
come  within  the  receipts  of  that  particular  locality;  for  if  one  State  pays  into  the  Treasury 
a  million  through  its  postage  and  expends  only  a  half  million,  then  a  half  million  of  that 
revenue  is  a  tax  upon  the  people  of  that  State  for  the  benefit  of  another  State ;  and,  as  far 
as  that  State  is  concerned,  the  post-office  is  used  as  a  source  of  revenue.  But  as  postage  is 
and  should  be  uniform,  then  the  Government  should  at  least  extend  to  the  State  paying  this 
forced  revenue  all  the  facilities  its  people  demand  within  the  amount  of  revenue  paid  by  it. 

Therefore,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  think  Congress  should  by  all  means  listen  to  the  prayer  of 
the  people  of  our  cities,  and  give  to  the  carriers  such  compensation  as  will  insure  their 
being  first-class  men,  men  who  are  worthy  of  the  great  trust  reposed  in  them.  They  have 
to  give  the  best  days  of  their  lives  to  the  service.  No  old  man  can  fill  the  position.  Few 
men  of  over  forty-five  years  of  age  are  equal  to  the  work.  Young  and  active  men  must  fill 
the  positions.  They  can  barely  live  on  their  pay,  and  have  nothing  to  lay  by  for  the  rainy 
day  when  the  infirmities  brought  on  by  their  exposed  lives  shall  force  them  to  quit  the  ser- 
vice. In  England,  when  worn  out,  they  are  promoted  to  some  other  position  which  they 
can  fill,  and  finally,  when  unable  to  perform  any  service,  they  are  the  recipients  of  a  pen- 
sion which  enables  them  to  spend  at  least  a  comfortable  old  age. 

Twenty-two  hundred  and  sixty-five  earnest,  honest  and  faithful  of  your  fellow-citizens 
are  watching  your  action  on  this  bill.  You  may  safely  ?ay  that  three  other  persons  are 
dependent  on  each  of  these  carriers  for  their  daily  bread.  Therefore  about  ten  thousand 
people  are  watching  our  action  in  this  matter.  I  earnestly  appeal  to  the  House  to  give  an 
answer  which  will  carry  gladness  to  so  many  of  our  fellow-citizens;  and  when  we  shall 
have  done  so,  then  when  the  quick  tread  of  the  carrier  approaches  our  door  and  his  sharp 
double-pull  sounds  the  bell,  we  will  remember  with  pleasure  the  vote  we  cast  for  his  benefit. 


Heads  I  win,  tails  you  lose." 


SPEECH  OP 

HON.  C.  H.  HARRISON 


The  House  having  under  consideration  the  claims  of  James  B.  Belford  and  Thomas  M.  Patter- 
son to  the  office  of  Represent  ative  to  the  Forty-fifth  Congress  of  the  United  States  from  the  State 
of  Colorado. 

Mr.  SPEAKER  :  Gentlemen  around  me  seem  to  be  rather  averse  to  putting  off  this  mat- 
ter. As  we  want  to  get  at  the  work  of  the  country,  and  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  are 
exceedingly  anxious  that  the  "aching  void"  from  Colorado  should  be  filled  as  early  as 
possible,  I  think  we  had  better  proceed  with  the  discussion. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  shall  have  to  very  my  remarks  somewhat  from  what  I  had  intended, 
owing  to  the  peculiar  effect  of  the  late  speech  of  the  gentleman  from  Michigan,  [Mr. 
CONQBR.]  He  got  the  muscles  of  cachination  on  the  republican  side  of  this  House  so 
thoroughly  in  motion,  that  I  feel  it  will  be  incumbent  on  me  to  restore  them  to  something 
of  the  solemnity  fitting  for  this  important  question.  To  do  this  I  shall  call  the  attention  of 
the  House  to  a  remarkable  order  of  brotherhood  existing  in  the  highly  polished  city  which 
I  have  the  honor  in  part  to  represent  on  this  floor.  The  rites  or  ceremonies  of  this  brother- 
hood had  as  forerunner  or  type,  an  older  and  simpler  ceremony,  which  has  gone  beyond  the 
Missouri  Kiver,  beyond  the  rolling  plains  of  Kansas,  and  is  now  in  full  vigor  in  the  new- 
fledged  State  of  Colorado. 

This  order  was  organized  for  the  purpose  of  enlightening  the  people  of  the  rural  dis- 
tricts suburban  to  Chicago  and  lying  within  a  radius  of  five  or  six  hundred  miles.  Like  all 
pioneers  of  great  ideas,  this  brotherhood  is  frowned  upon  by  narrow-minded  and  fanatic 
police,  and  is  compelled  to  hold  its  meetings  in  secluded  places,  in  the  back  room  of  some 
palatial  edifice,  entered  through  a  long,  narrow  passage  but  dimly  lighted,  for  too  much 
light  is  not  conducive  to  the  solemn  feelings  necessary  to  the  novice.  "When  the  unsophist- 
icated denizen  of  the  surrounding  villages  comes  to  my  town — from  Saint  Louis,  Milwaukee, 
Louisville,  Cincinnati,  or  Detroit,  at  once  a  member  of  the  brotherhood  takes  charge  of 
this  innocent  person,  carries  him  into  the  sanctum  sanctorum  of  the  brotherhood,  and  There 
certain  rites  are  performed.  I  never  was  in  one  of  those  places  myself.  My  information 
comes  from  one  of  the  gentlemen  living  in  one  of  those  villages,  and  as  he  is  a  modest  man 
I  shall  not  allude  to  him  more  particularly.  He  informs  me,  however,  that  over  the  door 
of  the  sanctum  sanctorum  is  a  cabalistic  sign  which  interpreted  readeth  "We  take  in  strang- 
ers, for  thus  we  put  angels*  into  our  pockets."  This  rite  was  founded  upon  an  older  rite, 
now  in  vogue  in  Colorado,  and  therefore  I  am  compelled  to  dwell  upon  it.  My  informant 
tells  me  that  in  the  room  there  is  a  long  table  covered  with  green-cloth, — baize  I  think  it  is 
called  there, — around  which  the  brotherhood  sit  with  the  novice  and  perform  the  rites  with 
a  sort  of  counter  made  of  ivory,  so  far  as  the  brotherhood  is  concerned  ;  but  these  friends 
from  Saint  Louis  and  other  places  in  that  locality  are  compelled  to  use  a  piece  of  metal,  the 
half  of  the  "dollar  of  the  fathers,"  which  was  "Hooped"  out  of  existence  by  the  chairman 
of  the  Committee  on  Coins  and  Coinage  of  the  Forty-third  Congress  and  now  in  derision  is 
called  by  the  Plutarch  "coin-tokens,"  but  which  is  really  the  poor  man's  money. 

The  gentlemen  from  Louisville  and  Cincinnati  use  a  piece  of  paper,  in  the  right  lower 
corner  of  which  is  a  hieroglyphic  character  looking  as  if  it  were  made  by  the  track  of  a 
fishing-worm  in  which  a  boy  had  stuck  a  pin.  This,  sir,  was  called  "money"  by  the  soldier 
when  he  was  fighting  for  our  country ;  but  now  by  the  Plutarch  of  the  East  is  pronounced 
"a  degraded,  irredeemable  promise  to  pay."  When  one  comes  from  the  haut  ton  of  New 
York — from  that  American  Rialto,  Wall  street— he  uses  a  golden  disk,  an  eagle,  which  by 
the  alchemy  of  republican  legislation  is  precipitated  from  the  sweat  of  poor  men's  brows, 
to  be  turned  into  interest  paid  upon  rich  men's  bonds. 

They  go  through  certain  performances  there,  utter  certain  weird  incantations,  and  then 
tome  of  the  brotherhood  suddenly  call  out,  "Kenol"  [Laughter.]  Immediately  thereafter 
the  brotherhood  rake  in  the  various  counters,  and  the  innocent  gentlemen  from  Saint  Louis 
and  Cincinnati  rake  out.  [Renewed  laughter.] 

That,  sir,  is  the  end  of  the  first  lesson,  and  the  second  lesson  is  like  unto  the  first,  and 


*  Angels,  an  old  English  coin. 


—  20  — 

the  third  is  like  unto  the  first  and  second,  and  the  remainder  are  like  unto  these  three,  until 
the  "wee  short  hour  ayont  the  twal"  is  reached,  when  our  rural  friend  goes  home  a  lighter 
and  I  hope  a  wiser  man.  [Laughter.] 

The  type  of  this  ceremony,  Mr.  Speaker,  was  much  older,  one  which  has  been  banished 
beyond  the  Missouri,  beyond  the  fertile  plains  of  Kansas,  and  to  the  borders  of  civilization 
in  Colorado.  It  is  the  old  ceremony  of  ''Heads  I  win  and  tails  you  lose."  If  you  will  only 
say  it  fast  it  is  the  fairest  of  all  propositions,  but  to  say  it  slowly  robs  it  a  little  of  its  virg- 
inal purity.  "Heads  I  win,  tails  you  lose"  was  the  game  last  fall  played  by  the  republican 
party  out  in  Colorado.  [Laughter"]  They  issued  through  the  secretary  of  state  election 
notices  directed  to  the  various  sheriffs  of  the  twenty-six  counties  of  Colorado,  that  they 
should  issue  proclamations  for  election  of  various  officers,  and  among  others  for  one  .Repres- 
entative of  the  Forty-fourth  Congress  of  the  United  States  of  America,  to  be  held  on  the 
3d  day  of  October,  1876.  That,  sir,  was  issued  on  the  31st  day  of  August.  After  a  half 
month  had  passed,  this  self-same  secretary  of  state,  Mr.  Taffe,  issued  another  election  notice 
to  all  the  sheriffs  of  all  the  counties  of  Colorado,  directing  that  they  should  issue  proclama- 
tions for  the  election  of  one  Representative  to  the  Forty-fifth  Congress  of  the  United  States 
of  America,  to  be  held  on  the  7th  of  November. 

This  was  all  fair  enough,  but  the  republican  committee  met  in  some  secluded  place  and 
concluded  they  would  play  the  game  of  "  Heads  I  win,  tails  you  lose."  They  said  they 
would  put  Mr.  Belford's  name  upon  a  ticket  to  be  voted  for  upon  the  3d  of  October,  both 
for  the  Forty-fourth  and  Forty-fifth  Congresses ;  that  it  should  be  : 

James  B.  Belford  for  the  unexpired  term  of  the  Forty-fourth  Congress. 
James  B.  Belford,  Representative  for  the  Forty-fifth  Congress. 

If  carried  by  the  great  excitement  which  then  existed  during  the  presidential  election 
and  Mr.  Belford  should  be  elected,  why  of  course  it  was  "heads  I  win,"  but  if  Mr.  Belford 
should  not  be  elected  they  had  a  chance  of  calling  for  tails  in  November.  That  was  the 
game  which  was  played  out  there. 

Let  us  see  how  they  played  it.  This  ticket  with  the  name  on  for  both  Congresses  was 
not  known  of  until  five  days  before  the  election.  The  gentleman  who  was  running  on  the 
democratic  side  was  away  out  in  the  mountains  of  Colorado  enlightening  the  people  there 
concerning  the  dangers  of  republicanism,  and  impressing  upon  them  the  truth  of  the  fact 
that  in  the  democratic  party  was  the  place  where  honest  men  and  poor  men  would  be  secure 
in  their  rights.  Not  until  two  days  before  the  election,  if  I  am  informed  rightly,  did  this 
gentleman  know  the  fact  that  the  tickets  were  being  so  formed.  The  democracy  at  first  led 
astray  and  partially  entering  into  this  game  of  "Heads  I  win,  tails  you  lose" — allowed  Mr. 
Patterson's  name  to  go  on  this  ticket  in  a  few  instances.  But  in  several  counties  no  ballot 
had  his  name  for  the  Forty-fifth  Congress.  Immediately  after  the  election,  finding  that  Mr. 
Belford  had  been  elected,  the  republicans  declared  it  was  all  unnecessary  to  have  another 
election  and  that  they  would  count  in  Mr.  Belford  for  both  Congresses.  And  that  celebrated 
scion  of  the  American  Constitution — the  returning  board — did  count  in  Mr.  Belford. 

Mr.  DOUGLAS.     Will  the  gentleman  allow  me  to  ask  him  a  question  ? 

Mr.  HARRISON.  Just  wait  until  I  get  through  and  1  will  answer  a  dozen  questions. 
[Laughter.] 

They  counted  Mr.  Belford  in.  The  republican  committee  ordered  that  republicans 
should  not  attend  the  election  on  the  7th  day  of  November  for  the  election  of  one  Repre- 
sentative to  the  Forty-fifth  Congress,  as  they  had  been  satisfied  with  the  great  success  they 
had  won  in  October.  They  stood  very  much  in  dread  lest  that  reserve  general,  which  some- 
times comes  in,  called  general  Apathy,  should  defeat  them  in  the  November  election.  The 
republican  party  made  one  great  mistake,  however.  They  forgot  that  this  copper  which 
they  had  flipped  would  fall  into  this  House  [laughter]  and  we  would  determine  whether 
there  were  any  heads  or  tails  to  it.  We  propose  to  send  it  to  a  committee  to  be  examined, 
where  it  will  be  rightfully  decided.  We  are  not  like  my  friend  from  Ohio  [Mr.  GARFIKLD] 
who  is  to  follow  me,  who  last  year,  when  the  republican  party  held  four  kings  and  a  knave 
and  a  bowie-knife,  whispered  in  our  ears,  "If  you  had  the  cards  would  you  not  play  them?" 
[Laughter.]  We  have  them,  Mr.  Speaker,  but  we  intend  to  play  them  fairly.  We  want 
nothing  but  justice  ;  we  intend  to  use  nothing  but  the  face  of  a  straight  pack  of  cards  ;  no 
jugglery  in  the  matter.  We  have  no  knave  sitting  at  the  other  end  of  the  avenue,  nor  have 
we  a  bowie-knife  over  there  on  Arsenal  Hill.  [Laughter.] 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  would  not  think  it  necessary  for  me  to  make  an  argument  on  this 
point,  for  the  gentleman  who  has  preceded  me  [Mr.  CHALMERS]  has  touched  every  single 
point  that  was  necessary  and  far  more  ably  than  I  could,  but  for  the  fact  that  my  republican 
friends  over  in  the  territories*  there,  I  am  informed,  some  of  them  did  not  hear  him  and  I 
intend  to  speak  loud  enough  so  that  they  shall  hear  me.  They  never  read  a  democratic 
speech,  but  they  are  sometimes  forced  to  hear  one. 


Outside  seats. 


—  21  — 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  says  that  every  second  year  there  shall  be  chosen 
members  of  the  Bouse  of  Kepresentatives.  No  legislative  enactment  which  renders  nugatory 
or  in  any  way  contravenes  that  fundamental  law  of  the  land  is  valid.  That  can  not  be 
controverted. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  says,  also,  that  the  Legislatures  of  the  States 
shall  decide  the  places,  time,  and  manner  of  holding  elections  ;  but  that  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  may  change  or  alter  such  State  regulations. 

Now,  sir,  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  has  changed  the  time  of  holding  the 
elections  in  most  of  the  States  of  the  Union,  and  did  fix  by  a  positive  law  that  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Forty-fifth  Congress  of  the  United  States  should  be  voted  for  in  the  States  of 
this  land  on  the  7th  day  of  last  November,  except  in  those  States  where  to  have  such  a 
vote,  it  would  be  necessary  to  change  or  alter  the  constitution. 

My  friend  from  Ohio  [Mr.  GARFIELD]  I  think  will  argue,  judging  from  a  remark 
of  his  which  I  will  take  the  liberty  of  presuming  will  somewhat  foreshadow  his  speech 
— he  will  argue  that  the  constitution  of  Colorado  would  have  to  be  changed  to  permit 
the  7th  day  of  last  November  to  be  the  day  on  which  the  election  should  be  held.  He 
will  hold  that  the  State,  though  admitted  last  year,  comes  with  all  the  powers  of  a  State 
into  the  free  status  of  any  one,  even  of  the  original  thirteen,  and  that  if  it  requires  the 
change  of  its  constitution,  it  would  be  impossible,  according  to  this  amendment  of  the 
twenty-fifth  section  of  the  Eevised  Statutes,  to  hold  an  election  in  November.  Now, 
sir,  I  hold  that  a  State  coming  into  the  Union  after  the  passage  of  the  twenty-fifth 
section  of  the  Eevised  Statutes  must  conform  all  of  its  action  to  that  law.  That  law, 
sir,  was  authorized  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  is  paramount  to  the 
action  of  the  laws  of  any  State.  If  it  could  be  held  otherwise,  then  any  State  in  this 
Union  could  nullify  the  law  of  the  land  as  passed  by  Congress  by  resolving  itself  into 
its  original  condition  and  forming  a  constitution  which  would  not  admit  of  the  7th  of 
November  being  the  day  of  election.  I  hardly  think  that  this  House  will  decide  that 
the  gentleman  is  correct  or  that  a  State  could  do  so  revolutionary  a  thing. 

Now,  sir,  how  was  Mr.  Belford  elected  to  the  Forty-fourth  Congress  ?  Under  the 
forty-fourth  section  of  article  5  of  the  constituton  of  Colorado  which  said  on  the  3d  of 
October,  1876,  one  Kepresentative  to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  should  be  elected 
from  the  State  at  large  at  the  first  election  under  this  constitution,  "and  thereafter  at  such 
times  and  places  and  in  such  manner  as  may  be  prescribed  by  law."  What  authority  had  the 
State  for  passing  that  article  ?  The  authority  given  it  by  the  enabling  act  which  authorized 
Colorado  to  come  into  the  galaxy  of  States.  That  enabling  act  said  that  until  the  next  gen- 
eral census  one  Representative  to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  together  with  governor, 
&c.,  should  be  elected  on  such  day  as  the  constitutional  convention  should  prescribe.  The 
gentlemen  on  the  other  side  of  this  House  claim,  sir,  that  until  the  census  of  1880  that 
constitutional  convention  had  the  authority  to  fix  under  that  clause  the  day  when  elections 
were  to  be  held  until  1880.  But,  sir,  let  us  read  that,  and  read  it  so  as  to  make  it  read  sense, 
so  as  to  make  it  conform  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  so  as  to  make  it  conform 
to  the  laws  of  the  land  ;  because  it  is  a  prime  consideration  in  interpreting  any  statute  that 
you  should  make  it  correspond  sufficiently  with  the  organic  laws  of  the  land  as  not  to  violate 
them,  and  that  it  shall  not  repeal  any  law  unless  the  very  words  of  repeal  are  in  it,  or  it  is 
inconsistent  by  its  terms  with  prior  laws,  and  that  it  conform  to  reason  or  sense.  "Until  the 
next  general  census  there  shall  be  one  Kepresentative 

That  member  of  the  clause  refers  entirely  to  the  number  of  Representatives,  and  was 
not  intended  as  a  part  of  the  sentence  permitting  the  convention  to  fix  a  day  for  the  election. 
For  why  did  Congress  refer  to  the  census  of  1880  ?  Has  the  census  anything  to  do  with  the 
day  on  which  an  election  shall  be  held?  Does  the  fact  that  Colorado  has  8  hundred  thou- 
sand or  a  million  voters  have  anything  to  do  with  the  propriety  of  the  convention  fixing 
the  day  on  which  an  election  shall  be  held?  Congress  was  not  making  a  piece  of  mean- 
ingless legislstion — was  not  legislating  without  some  reason.  There  was  a  design  under 
every  word  it  is  said  here.  And  there  was  a  good  reason  why  Colorado  should  have  but 
one  Representative  till  1880,  but  not  sufficient  for  a  larger  number  of  Representatives. 
Until  1880  one  Representative  is  the  number  to  be  elected.  But,  sir,  if  you  interpret  it 
according  to  the  republican  interpretation  on  this  floor,  then  you  must  read  it  so  as  to  make 
Congress  legislate  on  subjects  it  had  no  right  to  touch.  It  says  that  on  that  day  other 
officers,  the  governor  of  the  State  and  other  State  officers,  shall  be  voted  for.  What  right 
had  Congress  to  interfere  with  a  sovereign  State — to  declare  when  and  how  it  should  vote 
for  its  governor  or  other  officers  ?  Congress  has  no  more  to  do  with  fixing  the  day  on 
which  the  governor  of  Colorado  should  be  voted  for  than  it  has  with  fixing  the  day  on 
which  the  Dominion  of  Ontario  shall  vote  for  its  officers.  It  is  sovereign. 

Therefore  we  must  presume  that  Congress  never  intended  to  utter  a  brutum  fulmen.  It 
never  intended  to  utter  here  a  sentence  that  it  had  no  right  to  promulge.  The  State  was  put 
upon  its  legs  by  the  election  of  one  Representative  and  by  the  election  of  its  various  officers. 


—  22  — 

One  single  election  was  sufficient  for  that ;  and  that  was  what  Congress  intended,  and  that 
was  done  on  the  3d  day  of  October  when  the  State  officers  and  the  member  of  the  Forty- 
fourth  Congress  was  elected.  If  we  go  further  and  interpret  it  according  to  the  republican 
interpretation,  then  Congress  was  violating  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  ;  for  if 
you  follow  out  their  interpretation,  then  it  declared  that,  on  a  day  to  be  fixed  by  the 
convention,  one  Representative — i.  e.  one  member — should  be  elected  to  hold  until  1880. 
But  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  says  that  members  of  this  house  shall  be  voted  for 
every  second  year.  Therefore  the  whole  sentence  containing  the  words  "until  the  census  of 
1880"  applies  exclusively  to  the  number  of  members  who  were  to  sit  on  this  floor  from 
Colorado.  And  the  remainder  of  the  section  authorized  the  convention  to  fix  the  day — 
not  days — but  the  day  on  which  that  one  member  and  the  State  officers  necessary  to  set  the 
State  machine  in  motion  should  be  elected. 

But  the  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  are  deeply  interested  in  this  question  and  have 
brought  upon  this  floor  and  have  spread  upon  the  desk  of  each  member  of  this  House  since 
the  discussion  of  this  question  commenced,  the  argument  of  a  gentleman  whom  I  am 
forbidded  by  decorum  to  name ;  brought  here,  as  I  have  every  right  to  suppose  by  the 
consent  of  that  gentleman ;  a  private  document  written  as  a  private  paper  in  a  spirit  of 
noble  self-abnegation,  for  he  refused  to  take  any  pay  for  his  counsel.  I  am  forbidden  by 
decorum  to  call  his  name,  but  he  comes  in  such  questionable  shape  that  I  will  call  him  the 
Saint  Jerome  of  the  Green  Mountains.  We  on  this  side  of  tte  House  knew  the  Saint 
Jerome*  of  the  Green  Mountains.  We  have  taken  his  measure  and  his  gauge.  He  is  an 
astute  politician,  a  wily  statesman,  a  man  who  can  play  thimble-rig  with  the  law  as 
cunningly  as  any  prestidigitator  ever  did  with  my  lady's  thimble. 

He  is  a  man  who  can  play  "now  you  see  it  and  now  you  don't"  with  perfect  accuracy. 
He  is  a  man  who  can  amuse  an  innocent  inquirer  after  legal  truth  as  cunningly  as  did  his 
great  prototype  amuse  sweet  Mother  Eve  from  the  bending  bough  of  the  primal  apple-tree. 
He  is  capable  of  ground  and  lofty  tumbling.  O,  how  he  tumbled  last  winter -when  over 
yonder  in  that  hall  dedicated  to  the  sublimest  functions  of  the  Eternal  Jehovah,  the 
rendering  of  justice,  he  proved  first  that  white  was  black,  and  then  bleached  it  out  and 
proved  that  black  was  white !  In  the  case  of  that  flowery  land  down  South,  the  land  where 

The  orange  and  citron  is  fairest  of  fruit 

And  the  voice  of  the  mocking-bird  never  is  mute, 

with  one  fell  blow  of  his  legal  hammer  he  killed  that  veracious  witness  Mr.  Aliunde,  and 
would  not  let  the  people  of  this  land  have  the  man  for  whom  they  had  voted  to  be  their 
ruler.  Then  with  one  grand  somersault,  seventeen  times  turning  while  yet  in  the  air, 
when  he  found  himself  in  the  forest  mazes  of  that  far-off  region — 

Where  rolls  the  Oregon 

And  hears  no  sound  save  his  own  dashing, 

he  conjured  up  the  ghost  of  Mr.  Aliunde  and  with  his  aid  tore  into  shreds  the  Constitution 
of  the  land,  and  thrust  through  the  crystal  windows  of  the  rear  part  of  the  Nation's 
Executive  Mansion  a  ruler  whom  the  majority  of  the  voters  of  the  land  had  repudiated. 

But,  Mr.  Speaker,  let  me  say  parenthetically,  thank  God !  that  the  man  they  thus 
fraudulently  put  in,  has  acted  like  poor  little  Oliver  Twist  when  he  wag  put  through  the 
window  for  the  purpose  of  opening  the  door  for  the  thieves  ;  he  has  barred  the  door  and 
kept  the  thieves  out.  He  obeys  the  will  of  the  people,  and  if  he  will  only  listen  to  the 
voice  of  25,000  majority  in  Ohio,  he  will  soon  obey  it  fully  and  turn  out  the  "lean  Cassius" 
at  the  head  of  the  Treasury  who  is  grinding  down  the  poor  man  in  the  interest  of  the 
bondholder  and  the  plutocrat  Sir,  I  thank  God  that  he  has  one  attribute  of  the  American 
statesman,  a  desire  to  obey  the  will  of  the  people,  and  so  long  as  he  conducts  this  Govern- 
ment on  the  principles  of  the  great  democratic  party,  as  he  has  commenced  doing,  we  will 
help  him  and  care  not  how  "Tray,  Blanche,  Sweetheart,  and  all  the  little  dogs"  bark  at 
him  from  the  other  side  of  the  House  or  from  the  other  end  of  the  Capitol. 

Now,  sir,  this  great  legal  prestidigitator,  Saint  Jerome,  says  :  "Congress  never  having 
undertaken  to  regulate  the  place  or  manner  of  electing  a  Kepresentatiye  ;  it  seems  obvious, 
taking  the  facts  in  question  all  together,  that  it  was  the  intention  to  leave  the  constitutional 
convention  to  represent  the  State  in  that  respect."  Now  you  see  it  1  O,  it  is  wonderful ! 
Now  you  see  it  I  On  a  little  way  further  he  goes  on  to  say  that  the  election  in  November 
was  entirely  nugatory  because  Congress  leaving  the  manner  of  election  undisturbed,  it  was 
left  where  the  constitution  left  it — with  the  Legislature.  And  no  legislature  made  provision 
for  a  November  election.  Now  you  do  not  see  it  1  O,  how  wily  he  is  1  He  can  prove  that 
black  is  white.  The  constitutional  convention,  according  to  Saint  Jerome,  had  the  power, 
under  the  enabling  act.  to  regulate  the  times,  place,  and  manner  of  holding  this  election  ; 

*  Senator  Edmunds,  of  Vermont.  The  rules  forbid  members  of  one  House  to  interfere  with 
matters  before  the  other  House. 


—  23  — 

but  the  constitutional  convention  had  not  that  power  because  the  constitution  fixed  it  in  the 
Legislature  of  the  State  1  That  is  very  profound. 

But  Saint  Jerome  and  my  friend  from  Maine,  [Mr.  HALE,]  following  after  nature, 
abhor  a  vacuum.  They  say  it  would  be  hard  for  that  far-off  State  to  be  unrepresented  on 
this  floor.  O,  what  a  difference  it  makes  when  the  ox  that  has  got  that  little  wound  in  his 
side  is  your  ox  or  my  ox.  For  six  long  years,  over  at  the  other  side  of  this  Capitol,  one 
great  State  of  this  Union,  a  State  torn  by  faction,  has  gone  unrepresented,  and  I  never 
heard  that  any  letter  was  written  privately  and  distributed  publicly  to  aid  that  State  to  be 
represented. 

For  twenty-three  months  and  twenty-nine  days  in  this  House  that  great  State  was 
worse  than  not  represented,  for  it  was  misrepresented.  My  friends  on  the  other  side  of  the 
House  kept  two  men  here  for  twenty-three  months  and  twenty-nine  days  misrepresenting 
the  great  State  of  Louisiana,  and  then  at  the  last  hour  put  in  Mr.  Sheridan  and  some  one 
else  just  in  time  to  draw  pay,  but  they  had  not  been  able  to  represent  their  State.  They 
drew  double  pay,  $7,000  each,  a  year  for  not  representing  that  State.  It  is  better  to  have 
a  State  misrepresented,  according  to  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  of  the  House,  than  to  have 
it  not  represented  at  all.  We  Democrats  consider  that  no  representation  is  better  than  mis- 
representation. 

Look,  Mr.  Speaker,  at  that  old  bird  above  your  head  !  The  pelican  of  Louisiana !  I 
have  counted  the  little  pelicans  that  are  looking  up  to  her  for  sustenance  and  support ; 
forty-two  in  sight;  and  by  the  rules  and  laws  of  perspective  there  must  be  eighty-four  upon 
the  other  side.  They  were  all  misrepresented  on  this  floor  for  twenty-three  months  and 
twenty-nine  days ;  every  single  young  pelican  of  them  was  misrepresented,  and  yet  gentle- 
men upon  the  other  side  of  the  House  are  horrified  at  a  vacuum  existing  by  this  far-off  State 
not  being  allowed  representation  here.  Sir,  if  they  want  representation  we  will  give  them 
a  representation  that  the  people  want.  The  people  want  Mr.  Patterson  here,  and  if  they 
insist  upon  the  vacuum  being  filled  we  will  put  him  in  ;  but  we  do  not  want  to  play  the 
eards  simply  because  we  hold  them.  We  want  to  send  the  copper  to  be  examined  under  a 
microscope  by  the  Committee  of  Elections,  to  see  if  it  had  a  head  and  tail ;  because  we  know 
that  where  a  metal  has  been  deeply  indented  it  may  be  polished  down  until  its  surface  is 
made  as  smooth  as  diamond  powder  will  make  it,  yet  when  it  is  examined  under  the 
microscope  it  will  show  bondings  and  twistings  and  perhaps  letters  below.  Now  we  think 
that  there  may  be  a  chance  that  that  copper  may  have  an  impression,  and  we  want  to  give 
Mr.  Belford  the  benefit  for  it.  If  it  has  not,  then  let  him  stay  out  and  let  us  put  Mr. 
Patterson  in,  and  Colorado  will  be  represented  as  we  believe  her  people  wish  she  should  be. 
The  people  will,  we  believe,  be  satisfied,  and  the  republican  party  of  the  State  will  have  n® 
right  to  complain. 

What  right  had  they  to  violate  the  laws  of  the  land  and  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States?  What  right  had  they  to  elect  a  man  on  the  3d  day  of  October  when  the  law  of 
Congress  had  said  that  the  election  should  be  held  on  the  7th  day  of  November  ?  What 
right  had  they  to  violate  the  law  by  sending  a  man  here  who  was  not  elected  ?  Ah  !  they 
had  won  by  fraud  once  and  they  were  afraid  to  trust  the  people. 

Mr.  Speaker,  gentlemen  get  up  here  and  say  that  Mr.  Patterson  was  voted  for  in  only 
eleven  counties.  The  fact  is  that  twenty-three  counties  out  of  twenty-six  in  that  State  gave 
full  votes  for  Mr.  Patterson  ;  but  every  republican  sheriff  in  the  republican  counties  refused 
to  make  returns,  while  the  sheriffs  of  the  eleven  democratic  counties  did  make  returns  and 
the  canvass  was  made  on  those  returns.  If  all  the  sheriffs  had  done  their  duty  as  they 
should  have  done,  Mr.  Patterson  would  have  received  a  large  vote,  even  though  there  was 
no  contest,  Mr.  Belford  not  allowing  his  name  to  be  used  in  November. 

Sir,  in  1875  there  was  an  election  in  the  first  district  of  Illinois  for  Representative  in 
the  Forty-third  Congress.  In  consequence  of  the  death  of  Mr.  Kice  a  new  election  was 
ordered,  and  Mr.  Caulfield,  the  gentleman  who  had  been  elected  for  the  Forty-fourth  Con- 
gress, ran  for  the  unexpired  term  of  the  Forty-third  Congress.  Though  the  vote  of  that 
district  was  over  20,000,  Mr.  Caulfield  received  only  about  4,000  or  6,000  or  6,000—1  forget 
the  precise  vote,  but  think  it  was  under  these  figures — but  a  mere  fraction  of  the  total  vote 
was  given  to  him  because  there  was  no  opposition  to  him  and  the  people  did  not  turn  out 
to  vote. 

For  the  Forty-third  Congress  Mr.  Hagans  received  3,441  in  West  Virginia  in  a  district 
of  27,000  votes — received  them  in  August  Eight  of  the  eleven  of  the  Committee  of  Elections 
reported  there  was  no  valid  election,  yet  the  republican  Congress  admitted  him.  But  now 
they  say  the  election  in  November  for  Mr.  Patterson  was  a  farce  because  only  some  four  to 
five  thousand  votes  were  cast. 

Why,  sir,  the  voters  of  the  republican  party  were  directed  by  the  chairman  of  the  cen- 
tral committee  of  that  state  not  to  vote  at  the  election  of  the  7th  of  November,  and  but  a 
few  democrats,  comparatively  speaking,  came  to  the  polls  and  voted  for  Mr.  Patterson,  be- 
cause it  was  necessary  for  only  a  few  to  vote. 


—  24  — 

Let  us  send  this  whole  thing  where  in  fairness  it  ought  to  go;  let  us  send  it  to  a  com- 
mittee. We  find  here  how  unfit  this  House  is  to  hear  testimony.  The  gentleman  from 
Michigan  [Mr.  CONGER]  the  other  day  stated  as  facts  that  which  the  gentleman  from  Ohio 
[Mr.  SOUTHARD]  positively  contradicted.  Whom  are  we  to  believe?  Whose  word  are  we 
to  take  ?  We  will  be  certain  not  to  believe  that  side ;  and  although  they  ought  to  believe 
this,  I  fear  that  in  their  prejudices  they  will  not.  We  want  this  case  sent  where  the  testi- 
mony can  be  weighed,  where  the  law  can  be  collated,  so  that  when  a  report  is  made  by  the 
proper  committee  we  can  vote  upon  the  subject  intelligently.  That  committee  is  the  Com- 
mittee of  Elections  ;  and  I  promise  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  that  when  that  committee 
reports  here,  this  side  of  the  House  will  vote  as  honest  men,  and  not  as  partisans;  that  we 
will  not  follow  in  the  wake  which  they  have  made  for  so  many  years. 


SPEECH  OF 

HON.  CARTER  H.  HARRISON, 

ON  THE  USE  OF  MILITARY  AT  ELECTIONS, 

Delivered  May  23,  1878. 

Mr.  Chairman,  as  showing  a  reason  why  the  Army  should  be  increased  from  twenty 
to  twenty-five  thousand  enlisted  men,  the  Gentleman  from  Ohio  [Mr.  GARFIKLD]  yesterday 
sent  to  the  Clerk's  desk  to  be  read  a  telegram  from  Governor  Williams,  of  Indiana,  asking 
assistance  from  the  President  of  the  United  States.  When  that  telegram  was  read  it  created 
on  the  other  side  of  the  House  considerable  merriment.  That  side  of  the  House  is  composed 
largely  this  year  of  new  men.  They  were  unacquainted  with  the  character  of  "old  Blue 
Jeans."  They  did  not  know  he  was  a  man  of  economy.  They  were  forgetful,  or  never 
heard,  that  last  year  he  refused  to  give  to  the  gentlemen  the  right  to  drink  lemonade  at  the 
expense  of  the  United  States.  [Laughter.]  They  forgot,  sir,  on  all  subjects  he  was  an 
economist ;  one  who  had  risen  from  the  plow  to  the  governorship  of  Indiana,  as  one  of  the 
great  men  of  my  State  rose  from  a  rail-splitter  to  be  President  of  the  United  States.  Mr. 
Williams  has  been,  for  a  number  of  years,  seeing  at  Indianapolis  a  lot  of  blue-coated  men, 
and  he  had  never  thoroughly  comprehended  for  what  purpose  they  were  there.  He  at  once 
discovered  he  might  utilize  them  ;  the  Government  was  paying  for  them,  and  as  a  matter 
of  economy  he  simply  asked  they  might  hand  out  the  arms  from  the  arsenal  to  the  police 
and  militia  which  he  as  governor  was  calling  out.  There  was  only  a  small  squad  of  soldiers 
at  Indianapolis  in  charge  of  the  arsenal.  He  wished  the  arms  to  arm  the  militia  with.  He 
had  men  enough  to  call  out,  but  had  no  arms.  He  did  not  ask  for  soldiers ;  he  asked  simply 
for  assistance  to  get  arms,  for  the  arms  that  were  there. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  let  me  contrast  that  telegram  of  Governor  Williams  with  the 
action  of  a  republican  governor  in  the  State  of  Florida  in  November,  1876.  I  happened  to 
be  a  member  of  a  special  committee  directed  by  this  House  in  the  Forty-fourth  Congress  to 
inquire  into  the  uso  of  United  States  troops  in  connection  with  the  election  in  Florida  and 
South  Carolina.  Governor  Stearns  appeared  before  us.  Let  me  read  the  testimony : 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  February  16, 1877. 
M.S.  STKABNS  sworn  and  examined. 

By  Mr.  HARRISON  : 

Question.    State  your  residence  and  official  position. 

Answer.  I  reside  in  Quincy,  Florida.  I  was  governor  of  the  State  of  Florida  for  the  last  three 
years  until  the  2d  of  January  last. 

Q.  Were  you  in  Florida  during  the  months  of  August,  September,  October,  November,  and 
December  last  ? 

A.    I  was,  sir. 

Q  Do  you  know  whether  there  were  any  United  States  troops  stationed  in  Florida  during  any 
of  these  months  ? 

A.    Yes,  sir  ;  there  were. 

Q.    Regularly  stationed  there  ? 

A.  Yes,  sir;  there  were  troops  regularly  stationed  in  Florida  at  several  points.  At  Pensacola, 
Saint  Augustine,  and  at  the  fortifications  at  Key  West. 

Q  Were  United  States  troops  stationed  anywhere  else  in  Florida  than  at  those  regular  points 
which  you  have  just  named,  permanently  or  temporarily  ? 

A.    There  were  detachments  at  several  points  in  the  State  in  the  month  of  November. 

Q.  What  do  you  mean  by  detachments  ;  detachments  from  the  troops  regularly  stationed  at 
the  polls  ? 

A.  Yes,  sir.  These  bodies  of  troops  were  scattered  somewhat  over  the  State  from  these  places 
during  the  month  of  November. 

Q  Were  there  any  troops  stationed  there  during  those  months  not  from  those  regular  perma- 
nent forts  ? 

A.  Yes,  sir.  About  the  12th  or  13th  of  November  two  hundred  0  nited  States  soldiers  arrived  at 
Tallahassee,  the  capital  of  the  State,  from  Atlanta,  Georgia. 

Q     Under  whose  command  were  these  troops  ? 

A.    Under  the  command  of  General  Kuger,  I  think. 

Q.    Are  you  aware  of  the  circumstances  that  caused  these  troops  to  be  sent  there  ? 

A.  I  am  not  aware  unless  it  was  the  general  political  excitement  at  that  time  at  Tallahassee 
and  in  the  State. 

Q.    What  was  the  nature  of  the  general  excitement  ? 

A-  About  that  time  there  were  some  demonstrations  of  violence  in  the  State,  such  as  the 
tearing  up  the  track  ot  a  railroad,  burning  two  or  three  bridges,  and  cutting  the  telegraph  line. 
These  were  the  outward  demonstrations,  with  a  good  deal  of  public  excitement. 

Q.    Were  these  acts  done  publicly  ? 

A.    No,  sir  ;  not  publicly. 

Q     Were  they  done  by  organized  bands  of  men  ? 

A.    1  cannot  say. 


—  26  — 

Q     Have  you  any   information  that  those  demonstrations  against  the  railroads  and  bridges 
were  by  organizations? 
A.    No,  sir. 

Q.    Were  they  done  at  night  or  by  day  ? 
A.    At  night. 

Q.  Were  they  acts  of  such  character  as  would  require  a  very  large  number  of  men,  or  might  a 
few  men  have  committed  them  ? 

A.    I  am  unable  to  say,  but  it  looked  like  a  concert  of  action  at  that  time. 

Q.  How  many  bridges  were  burned  by  one  or  two  or  three  men,  or  would  it  amount  to  an 
insurrectionary  act  ? 

A.    1  am  not  able  to  say.    I  think  it  probable  they  might  have  been  so  done. 
Q.    How  much  of  the  railroad  track  was  torn  up  ? 

A.    I  am  unable  to  say,  as  I  did  not  visit  the  place  where  the  destruction  occurred. 
Q.    As  governor,  you  had  of  course  authentic  information  as  to  the  character  of  those  acts. 
Was  it  that  here  and  there  a  tie  and  a  rail  were  torn,  or  was  it  long  strips  of  road  that  were  torn  up? 
A.    No  very  long  strips.  The  most  damage  was  to  these  bridges,  and  they  were  not  large  bridges 
that  were  burned.    In  the  other  places  a  rail  or  two  was  taken  up  anu  the  telegraph  line  cut,  some- 
times three  or  four  places  cut  down. 

Q.    A  boy  could  cut  a  telegraph  pole,  I  suppose  ? 
A.    I  do  not  know. 

Q.  Were  those  acts  of  such  a  character  as  that  you,  as  governor  of  the  State  or  as  the  sheriff  of 
the  county,  oouid  not  control  ihem  ?  Did  you  first  try  to  control  them  through  the  civil  officers  of 
the  law  ? 

A.   They  came  upon  us  so  suddenly  that  there  was  no  time  to  take  any  particular  action. 
Q.    Then  you  did  not  attempt  it  ? 

A.  No,  sir,  not  specifically.  Of  course  the  officers  were  expected  to  protect  property  wherever 
they  knew  of  its  being  threatened. 

Q.    Were  the  officers  forcibly  resisted  anywhere  ? 

A.    No.  sir ;  not  that  I  am  aware  of.    Those  acts  were  done  secretly  and  by  night. 
Q.    Nobody  was  arrested  for  them  ? 
A.    Nobody  was  arrested  for  them  that  I  am  aware  of. 
Q;    No  person  was  attempted  to  be  arrested  for  them  ? 
A.    Not  that  £  am  aware  of,  as  the  parties  were  unknown; 

Q.  The  State  of  Florida  during  your  administration  has  been  an  exceedingly  quiet  and  peace- 
able State,  has  it  not  ? 

A-    Yes,  sir  ;  generally. 
Q.    And  has  been  exceedingly  prosperous  ? 
A.    Quite  so. 

Q.    Order  has  reigned  generally  throughout  the  State  during  your  administration. 
A.   Yes,  sir. 

Q.  Was  there  not,  any  time  during  the  last  several  months,  a  time  when  any  organization 
existed  in  Florida  which  you,  as  governor  of  the  State,  attempted  to  quell  or  put  down,  and  were 
unable  to  do  so  ? 

A.    I  do  not  know  that  anything  actually  occurred  which  we  were  unable  to  manage. 
Q.    When  those  troops  under  General  Ruger  came  to  Tallahassee,  by  whose  orders  were  they 
sent  there  ? 

A.    By  the  orders  of  Secretary  of  War,  so  far  as  I  know. 
Q.    In  answer  to  a  request  of  yours  as  governor  ? 
A.    No,  sir ;  I  never  made  any  formal  requisition  for  troops. 

Q.    Did  you  or  not  send  a  dispatch  about  that  time  to  Secretary  Chandler  in  the  city  of  New  York? 
A.    I  did. 

[Here  the  hammer  fell.] 

Air.  HEWITT,  of  Alabama,  obtained  the  floor  and  yielded  his  time  to  Mr.  HABRISON. 
Mr.  HARRISON.     I  continue  to  read  : 
Q.    Advising  troops  to  be  sent  there  ? 
A.    YfS,  t>ir. 

Q.    Where  was  Secretary  Chandler  when  you  sent  that  dispatch  ? 
A.    It  was  sent  to  New  York  City. 
Q.    Where  was  it  directed  to  ? 
A.   The  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel,  1  think. 

Q.    Did  you  not  direct  it  to  the  republican  headquarters  in  New  York  City  ? 
A.    Yes,  sir. 

Q.    Had  you  received  a  dispatch  from  Secretary  Chandler  previous  to  that  ? 
A.    I  had 

Q.    What  was  the  subject-matter  of  that  dispatch  ? 

A.    I  received  a  dispatch  from  Secretary  Chandler  in  reference  to  the  election. 
Q.    Have  you  a  copy  of  it  with  you? 
A.    I  have  not 

Q.    Do  you  know  where  it  exists  ? 

A.    I  think  it  likely  that  I  may  have  it  in  Florida  among  my  private  papers. 
Q.    You  cannot  get  it  here  ? 
A.    No,  sir. 

Q!    State  as  far  as  you  can  from  recollection  the  substance  of  that  dispatch. 
A     There  was  nothing  in  regard  to  troops  in  the  dispatch  from  Secretary  Chandler. 
(Mr.  Kasson  objected  to  the  examination  as  not  within  the  scope  of  the  inquiry  intrusted  to  the 
committee  ) 

Q.    There  was  nothing  in  the  dispatch  from  Secretary  Chandler  in  reference  to  troops  ? 
A.    No  sir. 

Q.    Have  you  got  a  copy  of  your  dispatch  to  him  ? 
A.    I  have  not. 
Q.    Where  is  it? 

A.    I  do  not  know  ;  I  kept  no  copy. 
Q.    What  was  ihe  substance  of  your  dispatch  ? 

A.  A  dispatch  by  way  of  information  as  to  the  condition  of  affairs  at  that  time.  Speaking  of 
the  indications  of  violence  and  that  troops  would  be  required  to  preserve  the  public  peace,  and 
stating  a  case  of  a  train  being  wrecked  ihe  night  before,  a  telegraph  line  being  cut,  &c. 


—  27  — 

Q.    Do  you  mean  that  it  was  about  a  tie  being  broken  which  threw  a  train  off? 

A.    Yes. 

Q.    Was  that  one  of  those  cases  which  y  m  referred  to  before  ? 

A.  It  was  one  of  the  oases  which  i  referred  to  before.  There  were  on'y  four  persons  reported 
to  have  been  seen  at  the  time. 

Q.  Did  you  apprehend  that  there  would  be  an  insurrection  in  the  State  of  Florida  which  you 
could  not  quell  ? 

A.    There  was  danger  of  difficulty  among  the  people,  such  was  the  excitement  at  that  time. 

Q.  You  had  the  power,  I  suppose,  as  governor,  to  call  out  the  militia  at  any  time  to  protect  the 
public  peace  ? 

A.    Yes,  sir  ;  but  the  militia  was  unorganized.    We  did  not  have  a  man  under  arms. 

Q.  When  you  felt  that  there  was  a  danger  of  thU  sort,  did  you  think  that  Secretary  Chandler  in 
New  York  was  the  proper  person  to  apply  to  for  troops  ?  Was  it  the  impression  in  Florida  that  he 
had  the  control  of  the  troops  ? 

A.    No,  sir  ;  not  at  all.    That  dispatch  was  merely  conveying  information  to  him. 

Q.    Did  you  dispatch  or  write  to  the  Secretary  of  War  asking  for  troops  ? 

A.    I  did  not. 

Q.    Did  you  to  the  President  of  the  United  States  ? 

A.    No,  sir. 

Q.    Did  you  give  them  any  information  whatever  as  to  the  condition  of  affairs  in  Florida  ? 

A.    No,  sir 

Q.    But  you  did  to  Secretary  Chandler  in  New  York  City  at  the  republican  headquarters  ? 

A-  Yes.  As  I  happened  to  have  occasion  to  telegraph  him  I  gave  him  information  as  to  the 
condition  of  affairs  1  should  have  made  application  to  the  Secretary  of  War  at  that  time  for  troops 
had  I  not  received  a  dispatch  from  him  that  troops  had  been  ordered  to  Florida  sufficient  to  preserve 
the  public  peace. 

Q.  Had  you  not  received  from  any  person  in  Washington  any  information  prior  to  that,  that 
if  troops  were  needed  in  Florida  they  would  be  sent  there  ? 

A.    No,  sir  ;  not  any  information  at  all. 

Q.    These  two  hundred  troops  were  sent  ? 

A.   Yes. 

Q.    Where  were  they  stationed  while  in  Florida  ? 

A.    They  were  stationed  on  the  edge  of  the  city  of  Tallahassee  in  an  open  park  there. 

Q.    Was  there  no  intimation  to  you  that  you  were  able  to  protect  the  State  yourself  ? 

A.    No,  sir ;  I  recollect  nothing  of  the  sort, 

Q.  Did  thise  gentlemen  who  suggested  the  sending  for  troops  prior  tj  the  election  come  to  you 
after  the  election  with  any  suggestion  ? 

A.    No,  sir  :  they  did  not— not  on  that  subject  at  all. 

Q.  Was  there  at  any  time  before  and  after  the  election  such  a  condition  of  affairs  there  that 
you  felt  you  could  not  as  governor  of  that  State  protect  the  State  from  any  threatened  violence  or 
insurrection  ? 

A.    There  were  times  when  I  apprehended  very  serious  consequences. 

Q.    That  is,  you  apprehended  that  you  might  be  compelled  to  call  out  the  militia  ? 

A.    Yes,  sir. 

Q.  But  was  there  a  time  that  you  felt  that  with  that  militia  you  could  not  have  quelled  any 
disturbance  ? 

A.    There  was  no  time  that  I  was  not  willing  to  rely  on  my  owu  resources. 

Q.  And  you  gave  no  information  to  any  of  the  Federal  authorities  at  Washington  that  there 
would  be  such  a  condition  of  affairs  as  you  would  be  unable  to  quell  ?  j  -. 

A.    1  did  not. 

By  Mr. 

Q.  Was  there  any  act  of  violence  in  Tallahassee  or  in  that  country  from  tha  day  of  election  up 
to  the  inauguration  of  Governor  Drew  ? 

A.    No,  sir;  1  do  not  know  that  there  was. 

Q.    Was  there  any  act  of  violence  ou  the  day  of  inauguration  of  Governor  Drew  ? 

A.    No,  sir  ;  not  any  at  all. 

Q.    How  many  white  votes  are  there  in  the  county  of  Leon  ? 

A.    About  eight  hundred. 

Q.    How  many  colored  voters  ? 

A.    Something  over  three  thousand. 

By  Mr.  HARBISON  : 

y    Then  there  are  four  times  as  many  republican  voters  in  that  county  as  there  are  democrats  ? 

A.    Yes,  sir ;  1  think  there  are. 

Q.  You  have  spoken  of  some  two  hundred  troops  being  sent  to  Tallahassee  after  the  election  ; 
on  what  day  did  these  troops  arrive  ? 

A.    They  arrived  about  the  12th  of  November. 

Q.    Were  these  the  troops  that  General  Buger  brought  their  from  South  Carolina  ? 

A.    Yes,  sir  ;  from  South  Carolina  or  Georgia. 

Q.  Do  yon  mean  to  say  that  these  two  hundred  men  comprehended  all  the  United  States  troops 
that  were  sent  there  ? 

P!  Were  you  aware  that  there  were  thirteen  companies  transferred  there  at  that  time  by 
General  Kuger  ? 

A.    No,  sir ;  I  was  informed  that  there  were  about  two  hundred  men. 

Q.    You  have  no  particular  knowledge  about  the  number? 

A.    No,  sir. 

Q.    There  was  no  military  post  at  Tallahassee— no  barracks  ? 

A.    No,  sir. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  Governor  Stearns  says  Florida  was  peaceful  There  were  n« 
disturbances  and  had  been  none  ;  no  disturbances  which  could  possibly  be  considered  of  an 
insurrectionary  character.  Two  or  three  bridges  had  been  burned  at  night.  He  admits 
they  might  have  been  burned  by  one,  two,  or  three  men;  no  one  was  seen.  A  few  rails 
had  been  torn  up,  a  few  ties  removed,  but  in  no  place  more  than  one  or  two.  A  few  tele- 


—  28  — 

graph-poles  had  been  cut ;  at  one  place  three  or  four  men  had  been  seen  running  away . 
Tallahassee  was  quiet  and  peaceable ;  there  had  been  no  sort  of  disturbance  there,  and  yet 
on  his  advice  to  Secretary  Chandler,  chairman  of  the  republican  committee,  by  telegram 
sent  to  republican  headquarters  at  New  York,  for  he  had  no  correspondence  with  the  Pre- 
sident or  Secretary  of  war,  the  Secretary  of  "War  under  the  order  of  the  President  sent  a- 
large  number  of  troops  to  Tallahassee,  Florida.  Sir,  why  were  they  sent  there?  Ah,  sir, 
the  Army  has  strange  uses  in  this  free  Republic.  They  wish  it  now  to  shoot  down  hungry 
men  next  summer.  In  November,  1876,  they  were  sent  to  Tallahassee  to  see  that  the  vote& 
were  properly  counted.  General  Grant  wished  a  fair  count.  The  republicans  in  the  country 
in  which  is  Tallahassee,  are  as  4  to  1  to  the  democrats ;  yet  it  required  an  army  to  see  that 
this  inestimable  right  of  free  Americans  should  be  preserved.  And  they  did  preserve  it. 
They  protected  the  returning  boards  in  their  chaste  performances,  and  Florida  was  cheated 
out  of  its  votes ;  Drew  was  cheated  out  of  his  votes  for  governor.  Afterward  the  courts 
decreed  that  Drew  was  governor  and  decreed  that  the  Tilden  electors  were  elected,  but  the 
great  8  to  7  commission  in  yonder  room,  dedicated  to  justice,  refused  to  go  behind  the 
certificates,  and  the  Americans  have  a  President  whom  they  never  elected — a  President 
counted  in — counted  in,  and  therefore  a  legal  President,  but  not  elected  by  the  people.  Sir, 
the  people  of  this  country  will  not  soon  forget  this  use  of  the  Army.  They  are  not  willing 
to  have  an  army  either  for  the  purpose  of  falsifying  ballot-boxes  or  for  shooting  down 
American  laboring-men. 


SPEECH  OF 

HON.  CARTER  H.  HARRISON, 

DELIVERED  JUNE  10,  1878, 
ON  THK  APPROPRIATION  FOR  CHICAGO  CUSTOM  HOUSE. 

I  renew  the  amendments.  Mr.  Chairman,  I  have  been  in  Congress  only  three  sessions. 
I  came  here  with  something  of  what  my  constituents  thought  business  sense.  I  have  at- 
tempted to  bring  into  legislation  on  this  floor  some  of  that  sense.  If  I  have  failed  I  fear  it 
has  been  on  account  of  the  associations  that  I  am  thrown  with.  [Laughter.] 

Now,  sir,  let  us  discuss  this  question  as  business  men.  In  the  city  of  Chicago  there  is 
a  building  of  great  size  and  beauty  going  up.  It  may  not  have  been  necessary  ;  but  it  is 
being  built.  The  Government  has  spent  $4,000,000  on  that  building.  I  have  here  a  letter 
from  the  Supervising  Architect  of  the  Treasury,  stating  that  this  building  can  be  finished 
in  two  years  if  the  proper  appropriations  be  made  to  finish  it.  Five  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars a  year  for  two  years  will  finish  this  building,  and  another  five  hundred  thousand  or 
thereabouts  will  be  required  for  the  approaches  and  for  fitting  it  up  ready  for  use.  In  other 
words,  $1,500,000  will  finish  the  building  and  make  it  ready  for  use.  The  architect,  Mr. 
Hill,  says  in  this  letter  that  if  Congress  will  give  him  money  or  keep  him  running  full  he 
can  have  the  building  ready  for  occupancy  by  the  end  of  the  year  1879. 

Now,  if  the  House  should  appropriate  $750,000  now  and  $750,000  next  year,  our  post- 
office  and  custom-house  building  would  be  in  use  by  January  1,  1880,  But  if  we  appropri- 
ate only  $500,000  per  annum,  he  tells  us  it  will  be  at  the  end  of  1880,  before  the  Govern- 
ment can  have  the  use  of  the  building. 

Suppose  Mr.  Chairman,  we  cipher  up  the  difference  it  will  make  to  the  Government  by 
finishing  this  in  1879  or  1880.  For  example,  let  us  this  year  appropriate  $750,000,  and  a 
like  amount  next  year.  The  interest  on  $750,000  to  January,  1880,  at  4  per  cent.,  will  be 
$45,000 ;  then  the  interest  on  $750,000  to  be  appropriated  next  year  to  January,  1880,  will 
be  $15,000;  in  all  $60,000.  In  other  words,  by  making  a  sufficient  appropriation  to  com- 
plete within  the  two  years,  the  Government  will  be  out  in  interest  $60,000,  and  will  have 
for  use  in  1880  a  building  which  will  have  cost  it,  say,  $5,500,000.  But  the  building  some 
say  has  cost  a  million  to  much  at  this  date.  Let  us  even  concede  that  it  has  cost  $1,500,000 
too  much  ;  we  will  still  have  a  building  worth  $4,000,000.  The  Government  then  will  have 
the  use  in  1880  of  a  four-million-dollar  building ;  at  4  per  cent,  rental  it  will  be  worth  to  the 
Government  $160,000;  take  from  that  the  $60,000  interest  to  finish,  and  we  have  a  clear 
gain  of  $100,000.  But  we  pay  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  $50,000  a  year  rent.  The 
Architect  says  the  Chicago  architects  and  others  employed  cost  about  $8,700per  annum.  Add 
these  amounts  together  and  we  would  have  a  clear  saving  for  the  year  1880  of  $158,700. 

But,  sir,  this  bill  only  gives  $300,000,  which,  with  the  $100,000  already  given,  makes 
$400,000.  Now,  if  we  continue  to  give  that  amount  each  year,  it  will  take  four  years  to 
complete  it,  and  there  will  be  a  clear  loss  for  1881  of  $158,700.  Thus  there  will  be  lost  for 
those  two  years  $317,400. 

But  there  is  another  thing  to  be  taken  into  calculation  :  that  is,  the  insurance  upon  all 
the  business  done  in  and  the  property  contained  in  these  rented  buildings.  For  the  people 
are  insurers.  There  can  be  no  estimate  made  of  the  loss  in  the  event  of  a  destructive  fire  in 
our  post-office.  One  hundred  and  forty  million  pieces  of  mail  matter  pass  through  it  in  a 
year,  or  four  hundred  thousand  a  day.  In  case  <>t  fire  one-halt  of  this  daily  average  would, 
at  least  calculation,  be  lost.  Now,  who  can  tell  what  would  be  the  loss  to  the  people — the 
business  people — by  a  destruction  of  these  two  hundred  thousand  pieces  of  mail  matter  ? 

"When  the  building  shall  be  completed  we  will  then  have  the  benefit  of  the  $4,000,000 
already  expended,  and  it  will  save  over  $50,000  a  year  now  expended  for  rent.  That  is  not 
all;  for  the  architect  informs  me  that  he  pays  to  architects,  watchmen,  clerks,  &c.,  $8,700 
per  annum  merely  for  overlooking  this  building,  while  it  is  being  completed.  Yet  the  com- 
mittee on  Appropriations  come  in  here  proposing  an  appropriation  of  $300,000  a  year. 

Mr.  SPAKKS  rose. 

Mr.  HAKRISON.  My  colleague  [Mr.  SPARKS]  may  make  all  the  speeches  he  wants 
in  his  own  time. 


—  30  — 

Mr.  SPARKS.  Why  does  the  gentleman  say  $300,000  when  the  amount  is  four  hun- 
dred thousand?  The  gentleman  knows  that  in  a  deficiency  bill  passed  some  weeks  ago  we 
appropriated  $100,000,  making,  with  the  appropriation  here  proposed,  $400,000  for  the  cus- 
tom-house at  Chicago,  and  that  is  nearly  up  to  the  amount  of  the  estimate.  Why  does  the 
gentleman  misrepresent  the  facts? 

Mr.  HARRISON.  I  hope  this  interruption  will  not  be  taken  out  of  my  time.  I  think 
I  should  have  additional  time,  especially  when  I  am  charged  with  misrepresentation. 

Here  is  the  bill.  I  hold  it  in  my  hand,  and  read  "for  the  custom-house  and  post-office 
in  Chicago,  $300,000."  Has  the  committee  concluded  to  amend  their  own  act  by  giving 
another  $100,000  ?  What  right  had  I  to  suppose  they  would  do  so  sensible  a  thing  when 
they  have  shown  themselves  deficient  in  business  capacity.  [Laughter.] 

But  I  see  what  the  gentleman  alludes  to.  He  refers  to  the  $100,000  given  in  March,  I 
think.  That  was  called  an  advance,  but  it  was  because  the  appropriation  of  last  year  had 
run  out,  and  the  contracts  could  not  be  made  even  to  carry  on  the  work  this  summer.  I 
fought  to  have  an  additional  $100,000  last  year,  but  failed,  and  the  result  was  this  defici- 
ency. 

[Here  the  hammer  fell.] 

Mr.  CAD  WELL,  of  Tennessee,  obtained  the  floor,  and  said:  "I  will  yield  my  five 
minutes  to  the  gentleman  from  Illinois,  [Mr.  HARBISON.] 

Mr.  WRIGHT.  I  understand  that  I  was  to  be  recognized  next.  Am  I  to  lose  my 
right  to  the  floor  ? 

The  CHAIRMAN.  The  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  [Mr.  WRIGHT]  is  next  on  the 
list,  and  will  be  recognized  as  soon  as  the  gentleman  from  Illinois  concludes. 

Mr.  WRIGHT.  If  1  do  not  lose  my  right  to  the  floor,  I  do  not  object  to  this  arrange- 
ment. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  in  the  city  of  Chicago  the  Government  pays 
$50,000  a  year  for  rent;  $8,70C  a  year  for  salaries  of  those  who  are  supervising  the  construc- 
tion of  this  building ;  over  $2,500  a  year  for  the  protection  and  heating  of  the  building. 
This  makes  about  $60  000  a  year  paid  out  by  the  Government  in  addition  to  the  loss  of  in- 
terest on  the  $4,000,000  that  have  already  been  expended  upon  the  building.  At  present 
the  business  of  our  custom-house  and  post-office  is  conducted  in  tinder-boxes,  which  if  this 
House  continues  in  the  line  of  legislation  it  has  pursued,  are  constantly  liable  to  go 
up  in  smoke.  We  rent  our  custom-house  and  court-house,  our  post-office  and  bonded  ware- 
house. The  latter  are  comparatively  fire-proof,  but  the  others  were  built  for  office  build- 
ings, and  are  as  inflammable  as  any  such  buildings  are.  If  they  were  to  take  fire,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  save  anything  except  what  would  be  in  the  vaults. 

Chicago  collects  and  pays  into  the  Treasury  over  $9,000,000  of  internal  revenue.  About 
$2,000,000  of  customs  duties.  In  the  post-ofilce  $  i3,000,000  passes  through  the  money-order 
division.  About  sixty  million  pieces  of  matter  passes  through  the  hands  of  the  carriers. 
And  in  the  mailing  division  about  eighty  million  pieces  pass.  All  of  this  vast  business  is 
done  in  buildings  utterly  unfit  for  the  business. 

I  am  a  business  man,  and  I  want  this  House  to  look  at  this  question  as  a  business  ques- 
tion. If  we  cannot  spare  from  the  Treasury  $500,000  a  year  to  complete  this  building,  cap- 
italists stand  ready  to  advance  the  necessary  money  at  4  per  cent,  interest,  which  will  be 
$20,000  a  year  ;  and  as  the  Government  is  now  spending  $60,000  in  rent  and  the  salaries  of 
architects,  &c.,  it  would  thus  save  $40,000  annually.  Is  not  this  plain  common  sense? 

Gentlemen  tell  us  that  the  Secretary  of  Treasury  has  informed  us  the  Government  will 
fall  short  in  its  revenue.  But  the  Secretary  also  asked  for  $500,000  for  this  building.  It 
you  quote  him  for  one  purpose,  do  it  also  for  the  other.  But,  sir,  I  say  to  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  and  tell  him  to  stop  spending  §35,000,000  a  year  for  the  sinking  fund  to  pay  a 
debt  which  ought  to  be  left  somewhat  to  our  posterity  to  pay,  but  which  he  is  using  for  re- 
sumption. Are  we  going  on  here  in  our  mistaken  policy,  and  quote  John  Sherman,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury — the  man  who  has  filled  more  poorhouses  and  more  lunatic  asy- 
lums than  any  man  in  this  generation  ?  Are  we  going  to  help  him  to  keep  the  poor  man 
down  and  saddle  upon  the  oppressed  people  the  payment  of  a  dept  that  ought  to  be  left  to 
generations  to  come  ?  Why  not  suspend  the  whole  sinking-fund  business  and  employ  the 
honest  and  idle  workingmen  by  putting  them  on  these  public  buildings  and  finishing  them 
now  ?  If  we  could  employ  these  idle  men  for  the  coming  year  confidence  would  revive, 
prosperity  would  commence,  and  we  would  not  have  boards  of  trade  petitioning  us  to  give 
a  great  standing  Army  to  shoot  down  frenzied  men,  hungry  Americans. 


—  31  — 

The  Supervising  Architect  of  the  Treasury  Department  says  that  with  $1,000,000  the 
building  can  be  finished  by  the  fall  of  1879.  Now,  is  it  not  economy  to  make  such  appropria- 
tions as  will  finish  this  building  promptly  ?  Are  we  to  go  before  the  people  with  the  pre- 
tentions  of  economy  when  we  are  in  fact  wasting  the  people's  money  ?  One  million  dollars 
will  finish  the  building,  $1,500,000  will  get  it  ready  for  use.  A  business  man  would  spend 
the  money  and  get  the"  use  of  the  present  idle  pile,  and  the  world  would  call  him  sagacious. 
Why  does  not  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  strive  to  merit  the  same  encomium  ? 

Mr.  Chairman,  I  regret  that  many  of  these  buildings  have  been  undertaken  ;  but  they 
have  been.  If  you  or  I  want  to  build  a  barn  we  would  build  it  when  labor  was  cheap,  and 
not  when  labor  was  high.  If  we  needed  it  to-day  we  would  build  it  to-day,  if  there  were 
men  around  us  anxious  to  labor  at  cheap  rates.  We  would  not  put  it  off"  until  next  year, 
when  labor  may  be  high. 

Gentlemen  may  say  the  Government  has  not  the  money.  We  have  all  the  money  we 
want.  John  Sherman  is  using  it  to  force  the  Government  into  resumption  and  to  plunge 
the  people  deeper  into  bankruptcy  than  they  are  to-day. 

[Here  the  hammer  fell.] 


SPEECH  OF 

HON.  CARTER  H.  HARRISON 

ON  REDUCTION  OF  TAX  ON  TOBACCO. 
DELIVEKED  JUNE  5,  1878. 

MR.  SPEAKER.  Gentlemen  are  spending  much  breath  on  the  question  whether  the  tax  on 
tobacco  comes  out  of  the  producer  or  out  of  the  consumer.  Sir,  when  a  tax  diminishes  the 
production  of  any  article,  then  it  necessarily  falls  entirely  upon  the  producer.  For  supply 
and  demand  must,  all  things  being  equal,  keep  even  pace  with  each  other.  Consumption  of 
an  article  of  no  cost  depends  entirely  upon  the  needs  of  the  consumer,  or  upon  his  ability  to 
use  it.  As  price  is  added  to  the  article,  the  consumption  will  depend  upon  the  ability  of  the 
consumer  to  purchase.  Inversely  to  the  price  does  that  ability  exist.  For  it  may  become 
so  high  that  only  the  very  rich  can  use.  Therefore  the  higher  the  price  the  fewer  who  can 
purchase.  The  tax  is  added  to  the  price  and  consequently  must  diminish  the  consumption 
in  exact  proportion  to  the  increase  of  price.  Now,  if  the  ability  to  supply  does  not  equal 
the  demand  for  consumption,  the  producer  will  be  able  to  add  to  price  until  such  price  reaches 
the  point  at  which  it  checks  consumption,  and  up  to  that  point  the  whole  price  goes  into 
the  pocket  of  the  producer.  If  any  part  of  the  price  up  to  that  point  is  in  the  shape  of  tax, 
then  it  must  fall  entirely  upon  the  producer,  for  it  lessens  his  profit  pro  tanto. 

Sir,  whether  price  of  tobacco  has  reached  that  point  or  not,  I  have  not  now  the  time  to 
discuss.  But  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  when  an  article  is  both  produced  and  consumed  in 
the  same  country,  it  must  in  all  instances  fall  upon  both  the  producer  and  consumer.  On 
which  it  will  fall  the  heaviest  will  be  dependent  upon  the  equitableness  of  the  tax. 

In  England  where  no  tobacco  is  produced,  the  tax  falls  entirely  upon  the  consumer,  and 
if  all  consume,  all  bear  the  burden.  In  England,  therefore,  no  injustice  can  be  done  any 
one  by  the  amount  of  the  tax.  For  its  excessiveness,  which  lessens  consumption,  falls  upon 
the  foreign  producer,  which  is  of  no  concern  to  the  Englishman.  But  here  we  produce  as 
well  as  consume.  It  is  therefore  our  duty  to  limit  the  tax  as  much  as  possible  so  as  to 
press  as  lightly  as  possible  upon  production  ;  for  production  implies  labor,  and  labor  is  the 
poor  man's  capital. 

Sir,  until  it  is  absolutely  certain  that  the  power  of  production  is  greater  than  the  abil- 
ity to  consume,  until  that  fact  is  fixed  and  acknowledged,  we  are  ever  in  danger  of  treading 
upon  the  rights  of  production  when  we  lay  a  tax  upon  any  article  of  American  production. 

But,  sir,  whether  the  tax  comes  out  of  the  producer  or  out  of  the  consumer  is  not  so 
much  the  question  here,  as  whether  or  not  it  comes  out  of  the  American  producer  and  the 
American  consumer.  Every  pound  of  taxed  tobacco  used  in  America  adds  to  the  burden 
of  our  own  people  either  as  producer  or  as  consumer. 

Let  us  agree  that  the  consumer  pays  the  tax  on  tobacco.  Then,  sir,  who  pays  the  tax 
on  tobacco  grown  on  American  soil  and  consumed  at  home  ?  The  great  bulk  of  it  comes 
out  of  the  poor,  or  out  of  those  who  are  in  moderate  circumstances.  The  rich  consume  for- 
eign-grown tobacco.  The  rich  man  inhales  the  fragrance  of  the  weed  grown  in  Cuba.  He 
pays  its  price  and  enjoys  his  luxury.  He  pays  it  out  of  his  abundance.  He  lessens  his  ac- 
cumulations by  his  extravagance,  but  he  robs  himself  of  nothing  of  absolute  need  to  him. 
He  is  able  and  he  enjoys. 

But  every  quid  chewed  by  the  poor  man,  every  thimbleful  which  goes  into  his  clay  pipe, 
deprives  him  of  some  other  luxury,  and  takes  from  the  little  hoard  which  he  could  wish  to 
lay  by  for  a  rainy  day.  "But,"  saith  the  reformer,  "he  need  not  use  this  quid  or  his  pipe 
if  he  does  not  wish  so  to  do.  He  is  not  compelled  to  use  the  one  or  the  other."  Ah  !  Mr. 
Speaker,  this  is  good  preaching.  But,  sir,  it  is  idle  talk.  Why  not  say  meat  is  not  neces- 
sary. The  East  Indian  eats  his  handful  of  rice  and  lives  and  labors.  Why  cannot  our  la- 
borer do  likewise  ?  Sir,  why?  Because,  sir,  habit  makes  meat  a  necessity  and  habit  makes 
tobacco  a  necessity.  Tobacco  is  to-day  in  use  in  more  lands  and  by  more  men  than  is  any 
other  produce  of  the  soil. 

If  it  be  wrong,  then  go  break  the  mold  in  which  men  are  cast  and  fashion  one  of  dif- 
ferent pattern.  But  until  that  be  done,  let  us  deal  with  man  as  he  has  been  fashioned  by 
his  Great  Creator.  God  fashioned  man  the  last  of  His  created  beings.  He  made  him,  and 


—  33  — 

then  He  looked  upon  him  and  pronounced  him  good.  Our  duty  is  to  deal  with  him  as  he- 
was  fashioned.  His  appetite  is  in  him.  His  appetite  for  some  form  of  narcotic,  for  some 
form  of  stimulant  is  so  nearly  universal  that  to  deny  its  being  natural  is  a  species  of  Bob. 
Ingersollism. 

Sir,  the  taxes  paid  into  the  Federal  Treasury  come  not  from  wealth.  They  come  not 
out  of  the  strong  boxes  of  wealth.  They  are  levied  upon  men  and  women,  upon  muscles, 
and  the  necessities  of  muscle.  From  customs  it  collects  over  $136,000,000.  Every  dollar  of 
that  enormous  sum  comes  out  of  consumption,  out  of  consumption  by  individuals.  Every- 
thing a  man  wears  or  eats  or  smells  or  looks  at  pays  a  part  of  this  tax  Whether  it  comes 
from  abroad  or  is  of  home  manufacture,  its  price  is  more  or  less  regulated  by  tho  custom 
duty  upon  some  article  more  or  less  allied  to  it.  Sir,  I  said  everything  a  man  looks  at  pays 
a  tax,  a  custom  tax.  I  was  mistaken;  he  "spies  his  shadow  in  the  sun"  and  pays  nothing 
for  it.  He  spies  it  day  by  day,  and  sees  it  growing  lank  and  more  lank,  and  the  sight  is 
free.  Sweet  privilege  ! 

Sir,  a  gentleman  from  the  East  said  to  me  a  few  moments  since,  "It  makes  no  differ- 
ence to  me  whether  you  lower  the  tax  on  tobacco  or  not;  I  smoke  havanas."  Yes,  there  is 
a  class  who  care  not  how  heavy  this  burden  ;  they  smoke  Havanas. 

But  the  forty  millions  of  internal  revenue  collected  each  year  on  tobacco  come  from  the 
masses,  from  the  more  or  less  poor.  Sir,  our  people  are  suffering,  out  of  labor,  out  of  bread, 
or,  if  working,  they  are  working  at  very  low  wages.  After  a  hard  day's  work  in  the  hot 
sun  or  in  the  drizzling  rain  your  laborer  goes  to  his  room  or  to  his  little  cottage  ;  he  takes 
his  frugel  meal ;  he  then  sets  him  down  on  his  rickety  chair  or  hard  bench,  takes  out  hi& 
short  clay  pipe,  on  which  he  has  paid  a  manufacturer's  duty,  fills  it  with  cheap  tobacco  on 
which  he  has  paid  twenty-four  cents  tax,  strikes  a  match  which  has  paid  a  penny  a  box  tax. 
He  slowly  lights  the  weed  ;  he  leans  back  and  for  a  moment  forgets  life's  weary  cares.  He 
watches  the  spiral  curls  of  smoke  as  they  gracefully  and  lightly  float  off;  he  sees  in  them 
the  faces  of  friends  in  a  far  off  land,  whose  features  will  never  again  appear  to  him  in  more 
real  fashion.  He  sees  the  young  bride  in  her  light  robes  of  long  years  ago  ;  she  is  now  a 
busy  and  care-worn  woman.  He  sees  his  first-born  with  its  first  infant  smile  around  its 
rosy  mouth  ;  it  now  sleeps  in  a  lowly  grave  unmarked  and  unflowered.  These  shadowy 
forms  float  before  him  in  the  blue  curls  from  his  pipe.  That  smoke  is  paying  a  tax  to  Gov- 
ernment. His  very  dreams  are  taxed. 

Sir,  it  is  the  poor  who  pay  this  tax,  and  for  his  sake  we  ought  to  reduce  it.  It  is  believ- 
ed that  by  so  reducing  it  we  will  not  lessen  the  revenues.  In  God's  name,  let  us  sometimes 
try  a  few  experiments  for  the  poor  man's  sake. 

Mr.  LUTTRELL.     Will  the  gentleman  allow  me  to  ask  him  one  question  ? 
Mr.  HARRISON.     Yes,  sir. 

Mr.  LUTTRELL.  Do  you  believe  it  is  right  to  tax  the  producer,  the  tiller  of  the 
soil,  or  to  tax  any  of  his  productions  ? 

Mr.  HARRISON.  Sir,  I  do  not  believe  that  if  we  could  help  it  we  should  tax  the 
producer  anywhere  ;  but  we  have  got  to  tax  something  for  revenue. 

Mr.  LUTTRELL.     We  had  better  encourage  the  producer. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  Let  us  encourage  the  producer  if  we  can.  We  will  encourage  him 
when  we  lower  the  tax,  if  we  do  not  reduce  the  revenue. 

But  that  is  not  the  question.  By  every  single  cent  put  upon  tobacco,  the  common  to- 
bacco of  this  country,  the  tobacco  that  is  used  by  the  moderately  well-off  Americans,  we  do 
levy  a  tax  upon  the  labor  of  this  country.  They  may  say  that  tobacco  is  a  luxury.  Ay,  sir, 
it  is  a  luxury  that  man  cannot  do  without.  It  is  a  luxury  that  has  become  an  absolute  ne- 
cessity. The  judge  upon  the  bench  uses  his  cigar.  The  clergyman  in  the  pulpit  uses  his 
snuff.  There  is  no  class  in  our  community,  sir,  that  does  not  in  one  form  or  another  use  to- 
bacco. There  are  individuals  in  classes  who  do  not  use  it ;  but  there  is  not  a  class  but  does. 
High  and  low  I  But  it  is  the  lowly  who  pay  the  bulk  of  the  internal  revenue  collected  on 
tobacco. 

It  is  said  that  whiskey  and  tobacco,  being  useless  luxuries,  should  pay  taxes.  But,  sir, 
whenever  a  habit  has  grown  upon  a  person,  a  habit  that  a  man  cannot  shake  off  without 
ridding  himself  of  a  part  of  his  very  nature,  then  that  habit  is  as  necessary  to  be  gratified 
as  his  appetite  for  food  itself. 

Last  winter  this  House  in  a  moment  of  enthusiasm  voted  that  it  was  not  expedient  to 
lessen  the  tax  on  spirits,  and  when  it  did  this  it  fastened  a  burden  upon  the  West.  My  own 


—  34  — 

State  pays  $21,000,000  of  internal  revenue,  a  little  less  than  one-fifth  of  all  the  internal  rev- 
enue collected  by  the  Federal  tax-gatherer. 

Sir,  Illinois  freed  from  this  tax  could  produce  and  would  produce  millions  of  dollars' 
worth  of  alcohol — alcohol  which  would  go  into  manufacture  and  not  down  men's  throats. 
Now  it  scarcely  produces  any  except  for  export  trade.  Alcohol  we  could  make  at  twenty- 
five  cents  a  gallon.  At  that  price  it  would  go  into  the  print  factories,  from  which  it  is  now 
banished.  It  would  go  into  burning-fluids,  into  varnishes,  and  thus  help  and  feed  laboring 
men  and  women.  But  it  is  dried  up  at  th«  still  and  the  forces  of  earth  pour  up  oils  to  be 
turned  into  benzine  to  take  the  place  of  alcohol — benzine,  which  requires  but  little  labor  to 
produce  and  consequently  feeds  but  few  men  in  its  manufacture.  Murphy  was  brought 
here  just  at  the  right  time,  and  the  innocent  thought  he  came  to  reform  the  drunkard,  when 
I  doubt  not  he  was  brought  by  your  eastern  high  tariif  men  to  frighten  Congressmen  into 
their  sectional  act  of  loading  down  the  West  with  the  burden  of  taxation. 

Sir,  I  am  thankful  they  have  no  Murphy  now  to  preach  against  tobacco,  and  the  results 
is  we  will  to-day,  I  hope,  take  one  burden  from  the  poor  man.  You  will  help  him  and  yet 
you  will  not  lose  one  dollar  of  revenue.  You  may  lose  a  little  until  trade  adjusts  itself  to 
the  new  rate,  but  that  will  be  only  temporary. 

Sir,  this  is  the  first  Congress  which  for  fifteen  years  has  done  anything  for  the  poor  man. 
The  great  papers  may  rail  at  it  ;  they  may  say  it  has  no  leaders,  no  brains,  and  all  that ; 
but,  sir,  I  will  tell  the  pampered  dailies  that  it  has  one  leader,  one  great  and  mighty  lead- 
er, a  leader  whose  interests  we  are  trying  to  consult,  whose  will  we  are  studying  to  obey. 

Sir,  that  leader  is  the  people. 


SPEECH  OF 

HON.  CARTER  H.  HARRISON, 

ON  ENGINEERS  and  PILOTS, 

JAN.  25,  1878, 
The  Steamboat  and  Navigation  Bill  being  under  consideration. 

I  offer  the  amendments  which  I  send  to  the  desk,  to  come  in  as  a  separate  section. 
The  Clerk  read  as  follows  : 

Sec.  38.  That  pilots  and  engineers  of  all  steam- vessels  who  shall  be  licensed  as  such  are  hereby  de- 
clared officers  of  said  vessels,  and  shall  be  subject  to  the  same  obligations  and  entitled  to  the  same 
privileges  as  other  licensed  officers  of  steam-vessels :  and  that  none  but  citizens  of  the  United  States 
or  persons  who  shall  be  actually  and  bonafide  residents  of  the  United  States  shall  be  licensed  as  pilots 
and  engineers. 

Mr.  HAKBISON.  The  first  part  of  this  amendment  may  seem  to  be  unnecessary.  J"rom 
reading  the  bill  and  the  statues,  one  would  think  that  pilots  and  engineers  were  sufficiently 
recognized  as  officers.  But  in  some  way,  I  do  not  know  how,  in  the  courts  it  has  been  held 
that  they  were  not  officers.  During  the  Forty-fourth  Congress  an  amendment  almost  the 
same  as  this  was  offered  by  myself  and  was  adopted  on  the  steamboat  and  navigation  bill ; 
but  it  was  lost  in  the  senate.  I  have  changed  it,  however,  by  adding  a  line.  I  have  added 
to  that  part  of  it  which  said  that  "none  but  citizens  of  the  United  States  shall  be  licensed 
pilots  and  engineers."  That  seemed  to  awaken  some  objection.  Some  thought  it  contained 
a  know-nothing  principle,  and,  to  obviate  this  seeming  objections,  a  large  number  of  pilots 
and  engineers  in  the  various  associations,  which  number  over  fifty  thousand,  have  by  reso- 
lutions agreed  to  amend  it  so  that  it  will  make  these  licensed  pilots  and  engineers  bona  fide 
and  actual  residents  of  the  United  States.  They  will  accept  what  they  can  get,  although 
it  fall  far  below  that  which  they  wish.  In  accordance  with  this  expression  on  the  part  of 
these  officers,  I  have  added  to  the  amendments  passed  in  the  Forty-fourth  Congress  the 
words  "or  such  persons  as  shall  be  bona  fide  and  actual  residents  of  the  United  States." 

Sir,  we  are  always  legislating  to  protect  property.  Almost  everything  that  the  pilot 
and  engineer  wears,  his  clothes,  his  boots,  are  protected  in  the  manufacturer's  hands.  The 
very  steel  of  which  his  implements  are  made  is  protected,  but  protected  in  the  hands  of  those 
he  purchases  from.  Here,  sir,  over  fifty  thousand  men  come  up  and  petition  this  House  to 
protect  poor  men  in  the  United  States  from  being  defrauded  of  their  rights  by  foreigners 
owing  no  allegiance  to  the  General  Government,  not  abiding  or  residing  among  us,  not  liv- 
ing on  our  shores  so  as  even  to  expend  the  salaries  they  obtain  among  our  people. 

A  large  number  of  honest,  industrious  men  living  in  our  lake  ports  are  to-day  idle,  and 
have  been  idle  during  the  past  summer,  while  Canadians  living  across  the  line,  encouraged 
by  the  greed  of  the  ship-owners  whom  we  have  been  aiding  by  exemption  from  liability  by 
the  provisions  of  this  bill,  have  been  filling  the  places  of  our  own  people,  taking  from  our 
own  people  the  very  bread  of  their  mouths,  and  are  now  spending  it  on  their  own  shores. 
Canada  protects  her  pilots  and  engineers,  but  we  are  told  we  should  not  protect  our  own. 

Sir,  if  there  be  a  class  of  our  citizens  we  should  protect,  it  is  the  pilot  and  engineer  of 
steamboat.  Their  deeds  of  daring  have  been  sung  in  song  and  eulogized  in  prose — men  who 
rarely  have  deserted  their  posts  in  hours  ofperil  or  those  they  are  employed  to  protect.  The 
pilot  stands  at  the  helm  in  storm  or  fog  as  long  as  hope  lasts.  And  often  when  hope  has 
seemed  hopeless,  he  offers  his  breast  to  the  storm,  a  very  protection  to  the  lives  and  freight 
in  the  ship  he  is  steering  into  port. 

And  deep  down  in  the  hold  of  the  ship,  shut  out  from  the  light  of  day,  shut  out  from 
the  starlight  at  night,  denied  even  the  exhilaration  of  facing  the  storm-fiend — buried  in  a 
dungeon  more  dark  than  that  of  Chillon's  prison — 

A  double  dungeon-wall  and  wave. 
Have  made-and  like  a  living  grave, 
Below  the  surface  of  the  lake 
The  dark  vault  lies— 

In  these  deep  dungeons  these  daring  engineers,  cut  off  from  sunlight  or  starlight,  and  even 
from  the  storm's  howl,  standing  with  their  hand  upon  the  throttle,  while  the  water  is 
creeping  upon  them  inch  by  inch — wading  in  their  very  graves — rarely  have  deserted  their 
posts  of  honor  and  peril  until  the  very  fires  are  extinguished  and  steam  refuses  to  yield  to 
their  bidding 

Sir,  if  any  men  in  this  land  should  be  encouraged  and  protected  it  is  the  pilot  and  the 
engineer. 


—  36  — 

The  Association  of  Pilots  and  Engineers,  numbering  some  fifty  thousand  men,  sent 
resolutions  here  to  the  Forty-fourth  Congress  asking  that  a  bill  of  this  sort  should  be  passed, 
and  it  was  passed  as  an  amendment  to  this  steamboat  and  navigation  bill ;  but  it  failed  in 
the  Senate.  It  has  not  been  put  in  this  bill  by  the  present  Committee  on  Commerce;  and 
why  I  cannot  tell,  unless,  Mr.  Speaker,  the  owners  of  steamboats  or  ships  wish  to  employ 
men  from  abroad  instead  of  helping  our  own  people. 

There  can  be  no  objection  to  this  amendment,  unless  it  may  appear  to  be  discriminating 
against  men  coming  into  this  country  to  make  it  their  homes  ;  but  this  it  does  not  do.  This 
pilot  association  ask  that  after  the  words  "citizens  of  the  United  States"  shall  be  added  the 
words  "or  such  as  shall  be  actual  or  bona  fide  residents  of  the  United  States."  Now  the 
rights  of  men  who  come  here  from  abroad  and  to  become  citizens  of  this  country,  and  who 
take  out  the  papers  necessary  to  become  citizens  of  the  United  States,  are  not  infringed 
upon.  We  simply  ask  that  citizens  of  the  United  States,  spending  their  salaries  among  us, 
be  protected,  and  men  across  the  Canadian  border  shall  not  be  employed  in  their  stead. 

Mr.  DUNNE LL.     I  ask  that  the  amendments  be  again  read. 

The  amendments  were  again  read. 

Mr.  HARRISON.  We  have  lately,  by  an  award  of  arbitration,  voted  to  give  England 
$5,000,000  and  over;  for  what?  To  encourage  our  fishing-smacks  and  enable  them  to  catch 
minnows  on  the  coast  of  Labrador  and  Nova  Scotia  for  the  purpose  of  breeding  seamen  for 
the  United  States  Navy.  Sir,  are  we  not  to  protect  our  citizens  to  enable  them  to  become 
seamen  here,  and  especially  when  it  can  be  done  at  no  cost  ? 

What  class  of  seamen  are  more  valuable  than  pilots  and  engineers  ?  You  say  we  must 
not  discriminate  between  foreigners  and  native  citizens.  I  do  not  discriminate ;  I  simply 
ask  that  when  a  man  comes  to  America  he  may  be*  naturalized  and  then  be  protected  in  all 
his  rights  ;  and  when  he  comes  here  and  declares  his  intentions  to  become  a  citizen  he  has  all 
his  rights  ;  but  I  assert  that  he  should  not  have  theTight,  until  he  has  so  declared  his  inten- 
tion or  has  chosen  his  home  among  us,  to  take  the  position  in  our  American  service  of  pilot 
and  engineer,  and  thus  deprive  American  citizens  from  being  educated  into  seamen  necessa- 
ry to  protect  us  in  time  of  danger.  It  is  no  discrimination.  We  do  not  want  to  encourage 
foreigners  to  run  our  ships  ;  we  want  to  encourage  our  own  people.  I  do  not  care  whether 
they  are  citizens  or  not,  if  they  come  to  earn  their  bread  and  take  up  their  abode  with  us ; 
but  we  know  that  along  the  lines  of  the  lakes  and  rivers  bordering  on  Canada  are  hundreds 
and  hundreds  of  idle  engineers  and  pilots.  Their  places  are  taken  to-day  by  Canadians  who 
owe  us  no  allegiance,  spend  no  money  with  us,  never  protect  us  in  time  of  danger,  and  we 
give  them  the  right  to  be  pilots  and  engineers,  and  this  to  the  direct  injury  of  our  own 
people,  simply  because  men  living  under  a  cheaper  government  and  under  circumstances 
in  which  our  people  cannot  live  are  allowed  to  underbid  them. 

We  have  exemptions  exempting  owners  from  all  sorts  of  liabilities.  We  make  the  pilots 
and  engineers  liable  for  everything,  for  every  act  of  neglect  or  of  willful  misconduct. 
Give  him  this  protection,  and  thus  you  make  good  engineers  and  good  pilots.  I  do  not  think 
any  person  can  object  tp  that  as  discriminating  against  persons  of  any  country.  I  have  yet 
become  so  loving  to  mankind  that  I  am  willing  to  legislate  for  other  people.  I  want  to 
legislate  for  our  own  people,  whether  they  be  native-born  or  have  come  to  us  from  their 
own  free  choice. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 


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346EE4CHH2E4SSON  ILLINOIS  AND  MICHIGAN  CANAL 


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